If It Quacks Like a Duck
Walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm. Proverbs 13:36
My pet companion is Gabby (the cat above). When I moved here, he did not much like me and often gave me a ferocious hiss. Since those early days, we have become best friends. But I often hear him making little squeaks as he sits by the window watching all the birds. Thankfully, Jeanette Hanscome (All God’s Creatures) figured out the ‘why’ for me.
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During one of our visits, my sister Kristy and I reminisced about the quirky pets we’d had in the past. The memory we laughed over the hardest was of a cat Kristy got during college. Her name was Zoey, but to us she will always be known as “the cat that quacked like a duck.”
When Kristy and her husband got married, Zoey went with them to their first apartment, which had a pond that attracted ducks. Zoey’s favorite spot was by a window in the kitchen overlooking the duck pond. One day, Kristy heard quacking coming from the kitchen. When she walked to the window, she discovered the quacks weren’t coming from the ducks. It was Zoey. She’d spent so much time watching and listening to the ducks that she started mimicking them.
After that trip down pet Memory Lane with Kristy, I decided to do an internet search for quacking cats. Though I didn’t find an official answer for why Zoey quacked, I read stories and fun facts about cats chirping, quacking, and making other sounds that seemed to mimic the animals they watched while sitting by a window or on the deck.
Zoey the quacking cat is my favorite illustration of my tendency to start behaving like those I want to spend time with. When I hang around a friend who has a propensity for focusing on the negative, I can find plenty of things and people to complain about too. On days spent with sisters in Christ who see the good in others, share what God is teaching them, and enjoy themselves even when things don’t go their way, I do the same. If I am going to mimic my companions like Zoey mimicked the ducks, I want to sound like those who reflect Christ.
Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers. Psalm 1:1 (NIV)
Heavenly Father, teach me to make wise decisions about the people I’m with and help me to share Your faithfulness and love with others.