First of all, I have to say that I’m not one, or at least I don’t feel like one! A “lame duck”, that is. But let me just tell you how I came to use the phrase in the title of this morning’s Reflection. For the past year or so, before I announced my retirement date last month, people have been trying to sound me out about when it would be. I was never quite sure whether it was because they were unhappy with what I was doing and hoped I’d be gone soon, or at the other extreme were dreading my going and trying to prepare themselves for the trauma. Whichever it was, my answer was usually the same, “I’ll let you know in good time; meanwhile, try not to be concerned about it.” I could have been more direct, reminding the questioner that I’ve many times expressed a wish not to work much beyond 65 – and people could always figure out my age, or ask me – but I was concerned about the remaining time of my ministry. It was when someone on the Board pressed me a little to express my intentions that the title phrase emerged.
At the Board meeting when I was asked for a possible retirement date, I responded that I’d rather not say for the present, but I agreed that it would be reasonable to give at least six months’ notice to make the transition process as smooth as possible. At the next Board meeting, I mentioned that when I’d met with our President, Lee Dickey, to discuss congregational concerns, including this retirement question, he’d perceptively made the comparison with a “lame duck” President or Prime Minister – the well-known situation in which an office-holder who’s announced their retirement or resignation plans is then inevitably less effective in their remaining time in office. I said that certainly was something I wanted to avoid – becoming less effective because I’d be leaving soon.
But I was (and still am) concerned about another possibility which I think is even more to be avoided: the increased tolerance which is extended to someone who won’t be around much longer. In congregational life, when it’s known that a Minister is retiring soon, people who’ve been unhappy with some aspect of their ministry may decide to simply bide their time before expressing their feelings about the way things are going, or (in extreme cases) just to stay away till the Minister’s remaining time is up. In case you think that would be very unusual, I should tell you that there are actually a few people who’ve stopped attending this congregation while I’ve been here, and who we can hope may return in 2005. But I didn’t want that to happen – for people just to be waiting out the remaining time of my ministry.
I don’t want it to happen! I want you all to stay as engaged as you possibly can be, and to express your feelings as clearly as you possibly can about how things are going, and to suggest changes which I may still be able to make! Occasionally, over the years, I’ve said to various people that it’s best to act as if I planned always to be around. What I meant by that was that any dissatisfactions there are, or any wishes for change, need to be aired and not put aside because “It won’t be much longer”. My sense is that we’re in a very healthy phase of this congregation’s life, but (perhaps because of this) it would be easy and tempting for any of us to overlook whatever ongoing challenges exist if we thought that everything was going to change soon anyway. Any problems need to be addressed rather than pushed aside.
I started out a moment ago by saying that I’m not a lame duck, or at least I don’t feel like one! But I really need to retract, or at least modify that statement, because I know there are some senses in which I certainly am, although perhaps not in the common meaning of the phrase. The very first website that came up when I searched the Internet was one called “Word Detective” and it said:
A lame duck is one unable to keep up with the flock and who is thus easy prey for predators. The phrase "lame duck" was first applied on the London Stock Exchange in the 18th century to brokers who could not pay their debts. Beginning in 19th-century America, "lame duck" was used to describe a Congressional representative who had failed to hornswoggle the voters into re- electing him in November, but who was not due, under the Constitution, to actually be booted out until the following March. Thus freed of even the pretense of accountability to the voters, such "lame ducks" usually voted themselves a scandalous jackpot of perks, until a stop was put to the practice by the "Lame Duck Amendment" of 1934. U.S. Congresspeople now take office in January and their defeated opponents no longer have so much opportunity to loot and pillage on their way out.
No, I don’t think I’m a lame duck in that sense! First, I haven’t been voted out of office but decided to retire of my own accord. Not that I don’t know what it’s like to be in that situation – something similar happened to me in my former congregation, and it’s not unusual for Unitarian congregations, just as in other denominations, to decide they’ve had enough of their Minister and ask them to leave. The last few months then can be particularly hard for everyone to manage. However, this congregation and I have been rather a good match on the whole, and I’m not being pushed out. Second, perhaps unfortunately, I don’t have much opportunity or even inclination to loot and pillage on my way out. Seriously, what would I take? The only things I really want to take from my time here are the good memories which seem pretty much assured already. And that’s linked to the third way in which I’m not that classic kind of lame duck – there’s a feeling of strength about the relationship and shared ministry that we have, and I’m very much hoping it’s going to last right up until December 31st!
All right, those are the disclaimers – but these were to be “first thoughts from a lame duck” – meaning that there are some senses in which I am one. Those senses are just the flip sides of the things I’ve already mentioned; they’re the weaknesses inherent in the very situation of being someone “on the way out,” even more than my own particular frailties and imperfections. And those inherent weaknesses call for your help, your strength, in making the time between now and the end of the year as good as it can be. Let me recall them for you, and I’ll ask you to think about the ways in which you can bring your strengths to bear on the duck’s lameness.
The first point is the most difficult for me to contemplate – that I may not be able to be as effective a Minister any more because I’ll be leaving soon. This has partly to do with the very natural human tendency to discount the value of something that’s temporary, soon going to be over. We tend not to invest so much in short-term relationships as long-term ones – for our own self-protection, mainly – and this ministry has now become, in prospect at least, although not in retrospect, a short-term relationship. What I say or do is likely to be seen as less significant or worth considering because from the moment you heard I was retiring your minds inevitably (and rightly) jumped ahead to the next stage, the transition, the next Minister. And all I can say to this, by way of asking your support for my lameness, is to offer familiar words, which I’ll give you slowly, phrase by phrase for your contemplation and meditation. Here they are; they come from a very ancient tradition and yet are as applicable to our life here as ever they were:
Look to this day, for it is life!
In its brief course lie all the realities of your existence:
The bliss of growth, the glory of action, the splendour of beauty;
For yesterday is but a dream, and tomorrow is only a vision,
But today, well lived, makes every yesterday a dream of happiness,
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day.
There’s a second aspect to the short-term nature of the time that’s left. It’s not just a matter of your response to me, but of my own attitude as I complete my ministry. Anyone who’s new here – let me tell you something you may not have realized yet, though long-time members are very aware of it: I’m basically a lazy person. Well, that’s not quite true, not in the sense of being totally inactive – there are many things I love to do and pursue very actively, but I’m lazy in the sense of not being entirely committed to doing my duty, my work, the things I ought to do. I can always be distracted by a sunny day, a sudden thought, an enticing idea, a magazine in the mailbox, or a flower newly blooming in the garden. And in these final months of my ministry, the distractions become, if anything, more enticing. After all, it can’t matter much if I cobble together a talk from previous ones I’ve given, can it? It can’t matter too much if I let the phone calls and emails go unanswered for a few days while I do something else? It can’t matter if I don’t pay full attention to what needs to be done in this congregation – after all, I won’t be around at all, soon, so I’m just helping the transition process ... Well, it does matter. I know that, deep in my heart, and I need you to call me to account for the way I minister to you this year. In that account of the origins of the “lame duck” phrase, it said that congressmen were “freed of even the pretense of accountability” to the people they represented. Please don’t let me get away from my responsibilities; help me not to be a lame duck of that kind; hold me accountable!
Related to that is the third way in which I might be a lame duck if you let me, and I hope you won’t. I mentioned the increased tolerance which is extended to someone who won’t be around much longer. It would be a big favour both to me and to the congregation if you would not be tolerant in this way! That is, if you see things that could be better in our life together, and particularly in my part of our shared ministry, it would be very good if you’d do something about them rather than just putting up with them. Tell me if I’m getting sloppy with my sermons or reflections or whatever you prefer to call them. Don’t let me get away with skipping meetings when I really could be there, or with neglecting someone who needs a visit or a phone call from me. Let me know if there’s some issue with which I could be helpful if only I could tear myself away from my garden or my family history hobby – because I’m still supposed to be your full-time Minister and at my best I really want to be, but I’m easily distracted. This propensity for distraction is a good reason for retiring – but it doesn’t happen until December!
All right; those are the ways in which I’d appreciate your help, and I know your reminders will be gentle, because that’s the kind of people you are. Now I want to suggest a few ways in which a lame duck might actually be especially helpful to you, just by the very fact of being lame. Some of you might have heard of an influential book by Henry Nouwen called The Wounded Healer. Maybe I’ll write the follow-up: The Lame Duck Flying Instructor. Because all the things I’ve mentioned to you as possible lame-duck characteristics are aspects of all our lives at one time or another, and what we most need to do is not to get over them but learn to live with them – really LIVE with them.
The biggest thing is the time running out, things coming to an end, everything changing. Uh oh, you can guess what’s coming next, can’t you? Yes: that’s life! Time is running out, from the day we’re born. As I often say at funerals, “As soon as we are born, we are old enough to die, yet few of us consciously recognize that all life, not only the years after three score and ten, all life is a fragile and precious gift.” And this truth about all life is true about all the parts of it, too. Someone in our congregation was telling me the other day about an intensely-anticipated visit from a beloved relative, and her recognition that even before the visit has begun she’s already grieving its shortness. This is a wise woman and she knows that the joy of the visit will be enhanced by living fully in each day of it – but that the consciousness of its brevity also, in a paradoxical way, is what makes it precious. So it is with all of life. The challenge is to be fully present in each moment, recognizing that the moment is precious because it will end.
Lame ducks are, by definition, not as effective as they could be. They have weaknesses – perhaps a crippled leg so that they have an unsteady gait on the ground, or perhaps an injured wing so they can no longer fly long distances – or maybe it’s even their quack that’s affected so they’re no longer able to communicate well. I hope I’ve modelled, and will go on modelling, how it’s possible to be quite lame in many ways and yet find what the Buddhists call “right livelihood.” Notice the structure of that thought – it’s possible to be lame and yet find right livelihood. I want to suggest to you that the thought can go even further: just as the wounded healer can be more of a healer than the one who’s never been wounded, so a lame duck – a lame duck like me, like you, on your way out, slightly crippled, a bit unsteady – can be more of a flyer than the perfect specimen who is just that, a specimen, not real. Do you remember the story of the Velveteen Rabbit, a toy who becomes real?
“[Becoming Real] doesn't happen all at once," said [the Rabbit’s friend] the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand. ...[and] once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."
The Real Rabbit and the Lame Duck have more in common, I think, than simply being animal metaphors for our human condition. To me they convey the hope, the profoundly encouraging faith, that there’s a strength in the universe which can not only make up for our weaknesses but is even dependent on our weaknesses for its power – a strength that is made perfect in weakness. And in ending, I’ll return from the Rabbit to the Duck and recall a moment from childhood with which the word “duck” is forever associated for me.
I was about 6 or 7, staying with my grandmother on the farm for a week. I loved my grandmother very much, but I was, I must confess, not a perfect child. One night, just before bed, I did something naughty. I can’t remember what it was; I only remember my grandmother’s response: “Oh, duckie, that wasn’t very good.” Instantly, I was sorry. But I was also so glad to be her little duckie – willful and lame, but loved. I thank you all in this congregation for giving me that same sense of being loved, and I hope that you all may sense it too. So may it be.