Ducklings Provide Message Of Courage
Courage, Love, and Mandarin Ducks
The BBC Planet Earth video clip below shows day-old Mandarin ducklings taking a literal leap of faith.
Watching it this morning while someone close to me is going through yet another set of tests for yet another feared complication of her disease brings to mind thoughts about the kind of bravery she has exhibited in these situations.
- For some, courage is a daily necessity that is manifest without fanfare or self-aggrandizement. Those of us honored to know someone in this category have the responsibility not to confuse the absence of dramatics with an absence of courage or, worse, an absence of peril.
- Cute and courageous are not mutually exclusive. Those of us in the audience would do well to acknowledge and applaud both qualities.
- Grace, born of resilience, is far more important than gracefulness.
Courage and Love are the only irreducible, irreplaceable, indispensable virtues,
the sole sources of self-esteem and personal dignity, and,
ultimately, the only items of value we have to offer one other.
the sole sources of self-esteem and personal dignity, and,
ultimately, the only items of value we have to offer one other.
I’m sorry that extremity renders love and courage so poignantly. What we have and can give, as you say, is how we face inevitable extremity, together or alone. Love doesn’t make it go away, but it assuredly makes it better. Thinking of you both.
Comment by MindSpin — April 26, 2008 @ 6:22 am
CYOKAMO!!! the comments section was closed on that page. I found your blog searching for the cyokamo website. Our church utilizes cyokamo and ‘no, the camp song is not used any longer’ - except when I am present to sing it.
My world feels very aligned now, seeing that a medical doctor, a psychiatrist no less, continues to sing the camp song, as do I. My mind only held the more frequently used first verse, so I have now printed the full three verses from your blogsite that I might add the 2ne & 3rd to my storehouse of (almost) useless information. (Perhaps I may someday hear Alex Trebek say, “Sorry, the correct answer is ‘What is the Camp Cyokamo song?’” or better yet if it were an audio daily double, and I would be shouting from the couch - recognizing my superiority over mere mortals - ‘The camp song! The camp song!’ as the befuddled contestants’ eyes gazed toward the ceiling.
Camp Cyokamo - that was some Good Clean Wholesome Fun
Comment by Joel — May 1, 2008 @ 11:34 am