Last spring a duck entered our backyard journeying eastward, eleven little ducklings in file behind her. It was an outrageous appearing, really, since we live in the midst of the concrete city. The only waters east of us are the pools at the state hospital, four miles away, which distance is an odyssey! Between here and there are vast tracts of humanity, fences, houses, shopping malls - and immediately to our east, Bayard Park of tall trees and lawns.
Yet this duck moved her brood with a quick skill as if she knew exactly where she was going.
Buff brown generally, vague markings on her wings, a smooth pate with a cowlick at the back, she and her name were the same: blunt and unremarkable. The ducklings were puffballs with butch haircuts, obedient and happy. Big-footed, web-footed, monstrous-footed, floppy-footed, the children followed their mother as fast as drips down windowpanes, peeping, questioning, keeping together, trusting her judgement.
And she, both blunt and busy, led them into our yard, which is surrounded by a wooden palisade fence. Maybe she came this way for a rest.
But we have a dog. He rose to his feet at the astonishing sight. He raised his ears and woofed. The ducks back-pedalled to the wall of the house and turned eastward under the eaves' protection and waddled hard, her ducklings in a mad zip behind her. But the dog is leashed and could not reach the wall. This part of the passage, at least, was safe. The next was not.
Without pausing, the buff duck spread her wings, beat the air, and barely cleared the fence, landing in the middle of Bedford Avenue between our yard and the park. There she set up a loud quacking, like a reedy woodwind: Come! Come!
Eleven ducklings scurried to the fence, then raced along it till they found a crack: Plip! Plip! - they popped through as quick as they could, but their mother must have been driven into the park. By the time they gained the wider world she had disappeared. The babies bunched in confusion, peeping, peeping grievously. One bold soul ventured down Bedford to the alley behind our yard. The others returned through the fence.
Immediately the mother was back on Bedford, the one bold child behind her, scolding the rest like an angry clarinet: Now! Here! Come here now!
Well, in a grateful panic ten ducklings rushed the crack in the fence, thickening there, pushing, burning with urgency, trying hard to obey their mother-
Not fast enough.
A car roared south on Bedford. Another. The duck beat retreat to the farther curb. Joggers came jogging. A knot of teenagers noticed the pretty flow of ducklings from under our fence and ran toward it. The tiny flock exploded in several directions. The mothers cries grew hectic and terrified: Come! Come! - her beak locked open. She raced up and down the park's edge, and there was but one puffball following her.
The simple unity of twelve was torn apart. My city is deadly to certain kinds of families.
Five ducklings shot back and forth inside our yard now, but the hole through the fence led to roaring horrors and they couldn't persuade themselves to hazard it again - though they could hear their mother. That unremarkable duck (no - intrepid now and most remarkable) was hurling herself in three directions, trying to compose her family into unity again: eastward she flew into the park, south toward violent alleys, then back west to the impassive fence. Hear me now, hear me and come! Her children were scattered. She was but one.
I saw a teenager chase one duckling. He was laughing gaily in the game. He reached down and scooped up the tiny life in his great hand and peered at it and threw it up into the air. The baby fell crazily to the ground. The youth chased it again.
"Don’t!" I yelled.
"Why not?" the kid said, straightening himself. “What? Does this duckling belong to you?"
But where was the mother now? I didn't see her anywhere. And now it was bending into later afternoon.
I poured some water into a pan and placed it by the back wall of our house for those ducklings still dithering in our yard. They huddled away from the dog. But the dog had lost interest. They crept sometimes toward the hole in the fence. Now and again a duckling looked through. Their peeping, peeping was miserable. What do you do for innocents in the city - both the wild and the child? By nightfall they had all vanished.
No, not all. I can tell you of two.
The next day we heard a scratching in the vent pipe of our clothes drier. I went down in the basement and disconnected the shaft and found a shivering duckling who must have fallen down from the outside opening. Perhaps it had sought cover and didn't know the cave went down so deep. It had spent a long dark night alone in its prison.
And then at church on Sunday, a friend of mine said,
"Weirdest thing! I saw this duck crossing highway 41 -"
"What?" I cried. “A duck? Alone?"
"Well, no, not alone," said my friend. “I almost ran over her. I guess she didn't fly on account of baby ducks can't fly, and she was protecting it."
"Michelle," I said, “what do you mean it? How many ducklings did she have?"
"One. Just one."
Doesn't this remind you of our lives in regard to our faith? The unremarkable man without his degree in theology who leads the way. We begin by following him in that ragged zipper line, following directly in every footstep, doing the best we can, but then, the challenge becomes too scary, our trust fails, or we run into that mean giant who is prepared to throw us around with no regard for the fragility of our infant faith. And those in the end who began as one of eleven, or fifty, or even one hundred, find that their leader is guiding only one unlost child across that huge highway called life.
How many of those we made our commitments with or those we know of are still “hanging in there" with their faith? I know of quite a few that I knew of that now no longer seem to care. And what can we do about it? I think it is merely a case of hanging in there ourselves, believing what at times seems unbelievable, and trying to show those other lost ducklings the way back over the hill to that unremarkable man who died on the cross for us.

Extract taken from Little Lamb, who made thee?, Walter Wangerin, Jr.