I am going to go out on a limb and reveal something that just might put me at risk, being a new person here and all. But here goes.
I love the duck.
There – I said it. I love the duck.
As I write this, a very large yellow duck is docked at the headwaters of the Ohio. It is very large. It is very yellow. And it is one of the most winsome and delightful things I have ever seen.
I had been following the exploits of the duck and its international adventures since long before I knew it was coming to the ‘Burgh. The Dutch artist who created the duck, Florentijn Hofman, was inspired by his observation that while the old Dutch masters created beautiful paintings, the art suffered from too much seriousness. What they needed, he thought, was something joyful, something unexpected – something like a rubber duck. (Just imagine it – Rembrandt’s self-portrait as an old man…. with a bath toy.)
Our own city has sure gone nuts for this duck. The launch party saw tens of thousands of folks gathered in downtown to watch it get towed upriver by an Alcosan tugboat to its roost for the evening.
Of course, there are the cynics and the folks who are frustrated by the fact that there is so much suffering and need in the city. Why is our attention captivated by yards of PVC? How could we spend so much money on this? Why not the neighborhoods suffering from gun violence and underfunded schools and hungry children? And I get that. I totally do. I live in the same neighborhood as the Seminary, and I have children in those underfunded schools. But that duck, as ridiculous as it is, brings joy in the middle of its absurdity. And that makes me pay attention. Why?
A fourth century Greek Christian writer, Evagrius Ponticus, showed a groundbreaking awareness of the psychological dimensions of human spirituality. He knew intimately the inner struggles of the human heart and their impact on the life of prayer and ministry, on the effort to give oneself over to God. In Evagrius’ writing, there was an eighth deadly sin – acedia. Acedia underscores all the others; it’s “the one that causes the most serious trouble of all.” It starts with grumpiness, extends to boredom and meaninglessness, and presumes that things would be better ‘out there’ or ‘if only.’
Writer Kathleen Norris says that “[w]hen life becomes too challenging and engagement with others too demanding, acedia offers a kind of spiritual morphine….” It leads one, Evagrius writes, to “reflect that charity has departed from among the brethren, that there is no one to give encouragement…. This demon drives [one] along to desire other sites where [one] can more easily procure life’s necessities, more readily find work and make a real success ….”
Why don’t I just pick up my stuff and move somewhere my gifts are recognized. If I can be bothered. After all, why wouldn’t we want to be in a place where our gifts, genius, etc. are recognized and used toward God’s preferred future? Why wouldn’t it make sense to change things to better align with God’s promise?
And that’s the issue – each step along the way, the reasoning makes sense. That’s why it is called the “noonday demon” – it attacks in the light of day. Whence the sinfulness? It’s in the saturated hopelessness that motivates the desire to change. The antidote is not in changing things out there. There is no technical fix, no completion to the sentence that begins “If only…” The only redemption, Evagrius tells us, is “a state of deep peace and inexpressible joy”.
Which brings us back to the duck. I learned a long time ago that this work we do – ministry, broadly speaking – is doomed if not funded by joy. I have become convinced that the surprising, frequently absurd, and often playful interventions of the Holy Spirit are absolutely necessary. This oft-forgotten third person of the Trinity derails acedia and its invidious sub-demons.
But here’s the kicker – many of the things that become fodder for the despair of acedia are real things, and they really are awful. They need our attention. They need our best energy and the good work of our hands. But if that work isn’t animated by the Spirit and infused with something like joy and hope and a dose of playfulness, it’s not going to be very sustainable. Besides that, we aren’t going to be very nice people to be around.
In its large yellow way, the duck serves this function – infusing joy and derailing the status quo gently and absurdly as it navigates the world’s bathtub. It fulfills Hofman’s intent to drive a wedge into cultural acedia. If you haven’t gone to see it yet, take a trip to the Point. And if it’s not the duck that does it for you, I hope it’s something else.
Me? I plan to see it again. In the meantime, I think I’ll be listening to Luke 3:22 a little differently the next time it comes up in the cycle of readings. I wonder what would have happened in the Jordan River if the Holy Spirit had descended on Jesus like a duck….?
By Dr. Helen M. Blier, the new Director of Continuing Education at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary