"That loony chick ain't going to make it!" I said to Linda. It was a cold November day and I was watching a particularly small teenage loon out of our front room window. It had been born late in the spring; hence its diminished size and my concern.
"I don't get it," I said. "The adult loons were the model of perfect parents all summer. They fended off every kind of danger from Sea-Doo to eagle talon. And then, come early autumn they just waltzed off for their winter seaside home leaving their kid all alone on our lake to fend for itself. What really burns me up is the adults didn't even bother to teach their kid how to fly before they left. It's only another month or so until freeze-up and loon chicks don't make very good popsicles."
"No," Linda said, as she looked fondly at the young loon floating serenely past the end of our dock. She had been left to babysit the young loon many times in late summer and early fall as she sat by the lake in her favourite Adirondack chair. "They didn't teach that young loon how to fly, but they taught it how to train."
Linda was right, of course. Before the loon parents left for the winter, they had taught their chick how to train so that it could learn how to fly. This is the way of the loon. And so, at the beginning of November, all of the loon chicks hatched on our lake, regardless of their size or development, are now at the stage of extensive training. They are racing up and down the lake, flapping their wings furiously whilst running on top of the water and hollering their loony heads off. It's a time of great loon excitement. It seems to be an accepted fact that you have to run before you can fly, at least in the loon world. The truth is, several months of workout or training is absolutely crucial for something as un-aerodynamically designed as a loon to claw its way against gravity over the tremendous heights of the Coast Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. The truth is, during their summer molt when they could not fly, the loon parents had actually been training too, running on the
water and frantically flapping their wings, apparently just to keep in shape. And by doing this in front of their chicks all summer long, the loon parents had taught their young how to train. Loons seem to know that if you train enough to fly, actual flight follows naturally.
Training, working out, practicing: it's crucial in every endeavour from music to loon flight. The Apostle Paul holds it up as a crucial part of the process of running the race of Christian discipleship. In the athletic games of Paul's Greek world, training was not only important but a non-negotiable requirement. A long period of intense training was mandatory for anyone who planned to participate in the Isthmian games held every two years at Corinth. And so, Paul writes to his nestling Christians in Corinth about Christian discipleship and says: "Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever." (1 Corinthians: 9-25)
Paul is waxing metaphorical, of course, but his point seems clear enough: The Christian life is training to receive the crown of life – life eternal. The Christian life is training to fly. This is a new thought for me. I have always thought about the Christian life in terms of "being" a disciple of Christ. There is a finality in that notion. To be quite frank, in terms of "being" a "finished" disciple of Christ, I am not very finished yet. As to being a disciple of Christ, I am like the young loon on our lake; I kind of look like one, I kind of sound like one, I kind of act like one, but God only knows I am not ready to fly yet. In the light of my recent loon lesson and my new thought about discipleship, I can do one of two things. I can beat myself up over not being fully developed, or I can get excited about training and go at it hard. I think I will choose the latter. It's the biblical way, the grace-filled way.
In any training endeavour, it's important to know your weakness. Very often, in terms of my Christian life-training, I am well aware of my weaknesses. The Holy Spirit seems to do a good job of pointing them out to me, and if the Spirit is not willing, God knows the saints are always ready to take over. Sometimes this process seems more than a little bit disheartening. But the reality is that being aware of a weakness is not a negative thing – it's a positive thing. It tells you precisely where to work in the training process, where to focus. I like the way Paul puts it in another place: "I am still not all I should be, but I am focusing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us up to heaven." (Philippians 3:13-14)
