Living close to Boca Regional Hospital, I can walk to the Emergency Room. Wait, that doesn’t sound right. I can walk to the parking deck by the Emergency Room. And I can walk to the parking deck by the Medical Arts building, and the one by the main entrance of the hospital. Most nights, I walk up all three, getting a lot of steps in without wandering too far from home.

               Because I walk these so often, I start recognizing cars in the lots. I get to see the routines of the security and transportation people. I count the flights of stairs in the stairwells. I get to see the skyline of Boca from my hillbilly castle in the sky (obscure reference alert).

               I also have all kinds of encounters with cars; people driving too fast, people, lots of people, taking breaks/sleeping in their cars, parked collector cars, etc. One of these encounters happened the other night when a Jeep pulled out uncomfortably close to me. I locked eyes with this driver as she pulled out – it wasn’t dangerous, but unnecessarily close for an otherwise almost empty parking lot. And because of the proximity, I could see a dash-full collection of little rubber ducks in her car.

               Now, I have seen these before and have noticed that they appear only in Jeep Wranglers. While I had noticed this around town, I had paid it no mind. But as I pretty nearly got inside this particular Jeep, I saw the collection up close and personal, and it made me curious enough to look up what the deal is.

               We have a couple of Jeep owners in our church, so at the risk of breaking the pact of “It’s a Jeep thing, you wouldn’t understand” (stickers starts at $7.99 on Amazon), I googled this rubber ducky thing. I typed in “what’s up with the ducks in…” and it auto filled the rest of my question (that’s how many people ask it.) And the answer? Well, during the pandemic, a Canadian woman put one of those ducks on another owner’s Jeep with a quick encouraging note, took a photo of it and posted it on social media under #duckduckjeep, and the idea went viral. While the rest of us were collecting toilet paper, Jeep Wrangler owners started collecting little rubber ducklings.

               As I kept walking up the ramp of the parking lot, I smiled at that thought. It’s kind of cool that this one “random act of kindness” went viral. I think Jesus intended that to happen when He encouraged us to “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). Jesus wanted kindness to go viral. The Apostle Paul told Titus “Devote yourselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.”

               There’s also a great sense of community in this. You know you belong to a community when your Jeep gets a rubber duck placed on the door handle. And you can show the world you belong to that community by stuffing them on your dash. (Actually, some of these collections look dangerous to me!) And that got me to wondering about what makes us recognizable as Christians, and, specifically, as members of First Boca. Can people tell that we are Christians and that we belong to a particular church? Now, I don’t think we should make T-shirts that say, “It’s a First Boca thing.”  But it’s something to think about. Janice played “And They’ll Know We Are Christians by Our Love” a couple of Sundays ago as a prelude. I think that’s more what I’m thinking. I think that’s what Jesus was speaking to in the Sermon on the Mount. Let’s let our lights shine!

Back home,

Craig

“And do not forget to do good and to share with others,
for with such sacrifices God is pleased.”  Hebrews 13:16 (NIV)