Article November 5, 1984 Issue

When Love directs, we can safely follow

JOY ABLE

A wildlife film I was watching on television showed a wild duck that built its nest up in a tree. The mother bird hatched the eggs, and eventually, when she felt the ducklings were ready to accompany her to the nearby lake, she flew down to the ground and called to them to follow her. The babies, however, couldn't fly like their mother, so one by one they had to jump down to the ground, bouncing as they landed, but none the worse for the experience.

The last duckling to jump was most reluctant to do so and hung back for some time while his mother kept insistently calling to him. The camera was positioned to show a bird's-eye view from the nest, and certainly it did look a long, long way to the ground. But eventually the little duck was obedient to the mother's calling, and he too jumped safely and followed the others down to the water for his first swim.

All of us, at some time or other, are required to take big jumps in our lives. A new business venture may entail uprooting ourselves from comfortable surroundings and loved ones to make a fresh start in an unfamiliar area; or we may be urged to take an office or responsibility for which we think we have neither time nor inclination, and for which we may consider ourselves quite unqualified; or perhaps a longstanding problem that we've tried to avoid or ignore may require facing up to and healing.

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