Seriously, I know that the Ultimate works in mysterious ways, but Duck Dynasty. If anybody had told me a year ago, I would have had the spiritual reaction that I did while watching a Duck Dynasty marathon on A and E, I would have called them a liar. Seriously, Duck Dynasty? I remember when I first saw the ads about a year ago. Nothing in them screamed – watch me. Last night, I was sitting with our housemate while he was resting his back and somehow I was sucked into this mix of honesty and humor with an underlying thread of spirituality.
As I have been thinking about what it was about the episodes I watched that I appreciated, I think it was the ability to trust their intuition, to capitalize on each other’s gifts, and to create something beautiful out of what others could not appreciate. For example, Korie, Willie, Jase, and Missy wanted to do something special for Phil and Miss Kay’s 48th anniversary. During the conversation, it came up that they had never had a wedding, so the Korie and Missy listened to their intuition and decided that this is what they should do for them; give them a wedding. The two wives quickly assessed the situation and all that had to be done, who had the gifts to do what and divided the responsibilities accordingly. It was easy to see how Korie’s role as Office Manager at Duck Commander Compound was perfect for her personality. Some of her choices did not seem logical to me at first, but they were indeed perfect. For example, her decision to ask Si whose memory was described as being sucked out of him to keep Phil and Miss Kay away from the house for the entire day while the yard was transformed. The other choice, which was doubted, was asking Mountain Man to create the arbor under which the ceremony would take place. Yet both of these decisions turned out to be perfect. Si may have lost some of his memory, but he remembered things that even Miss Kay and Phil had forgotten about, like a tree they had carved their initials in when they first began dating. He was able to draw on his long-term memory and his knowledge of their relationship to bring them down memory lane. What a blessing to have someone who you have journeyed with for more then half a century, who knows you that well.
Mountain Man was also amazing. He moved slower then molasses and as he was pulling stuff off of his truck for the arboretum, I found myself sitting in judgment of what he was going to create. Up until it was done, I could not see or appreciate his vision. It just looked like a pile of stuff. However, when he was done, it was so beautiful. Sometimes we have to trust the vision that others have been given and the gifts they were given to bring them into being.
One of the parts, which transported me back in time, was the internal dialogue about who was going to be Phil’s best man. Each of the brothers was convinced it was going to be him. It reminded me of a story in the New Testament where the disciples were fighting over who was Jesus’ favorite. Willie was convinced that as CEO and the second oldest he would be picked. Phil surprised them all and picked Si because he had been his best friend for decades and had been there in good times and bad.
Maybe the thing that got to me the most was during Miss Kay’s vows when she talked about how she had loved Phil even when he was not very nice and she did not like him very much. It reminded me of something my homiletics professor had said to me once about love being a choice. It is so true. Zoe and I laugh about how there are moments in our relationship where we have not liked each other and have gotten on each other’s nerves. It is in those moments that I find myself reminding myself that at that moment I am going to choose to love her because I know the best is yet to come and it does. Then she will do something, which reminds me how much I not only love her, but also like her and all is good.
So thanks Sharon, Bernie, and Sam for sucking me into this show, making me move beyond my initial assumptions, and discovering unexpected treasures in what I would have just seen as a clay jar.