FROM THE PULPIT: AN ODE TO HOPPY AND A MESSAGE TO GRADUATES

Hoppy was my pet frog. I got him along with seven other frog embryos on the first day of the Lenten season way back in February.

The frog eggs were part of a kit I ordered from a science experiment company. I had the notion that this would indeed be an exercise in "new birth and transformation" for me and my congregation as we watched the frog eggs hatch and mature. New birth and transformation are after all what the Christian life is all about.

To begin with only one of my eggs made it. At first I was pretty disappointed that all eight embryos didn't hatch into the tiny, even microscopic, tadpole that I observed about four days after my frog kit arrived but then, I thought, at least I got one.

How disappointed I would have been not to have gotten any of the eggs to hatch.

So, after I resolved myself to an intimate relationship with only one frog rather than a "herd" I was quite content to nurture Mr. Hoppy (the name which the children of my congregation dubbed him as he grew. "Stinky" was also one of their favorite suggestions).

Hoppy grew rapidly and every day there was something new to observe as I came into my office to greet him sitting on the corner of my desk.

Church members and others on my staff would come by to check his progress "he looks a little longer today, I think," or "wow, today I can see that he is getting a tail," or "hey, I think I am beginning to see the beginnings of some arms or legs."

By Easter I had hoped he might be a bonafide frog, but it was not to be the case. His biological clock was just not on the same schedule as I wanted for it to be.

Shortly after Easter, however, the tail was re-absorbed (they don't really fall off you know. I learned that) and he sprouted arms and legs.

By now his overall size was about an inch-and-a-half and he had developed enough visible characteristics that I could look in the encyclopedia and figure out that he was a leopard frog.

Discovering Hoppy's identity was significant because this meant that he wouldn't be staying in the tiny plastic container of water on the edge of my desk anymore.

Leopard frogs, you see, are not water frogs but they are amphibious. He needed to be able to get out of water once-in-awhile. I got him a new habitat.

The addition of legs also meant Hoppy had reached the stage which required me to stop feeding him the little tadpole pellets I had been provided and begin to find him some bugs.

I spent much of the time worrying that he was not getting enough to eat and I suppose he wasn't because today when I came into my office to check on him he was floating, lifeless, in his little pool (yes, he "croaked"). You may think this is goofy but I was really sad when I found my frog dead.

I realized that this experiment in new birth and transformation had, had a profound affect upon me.

I had done my best to nurture the life that hatched out but God really did all the hard work just as God does for all of life in the whole creation.

I was left with the impression that life, in all of its many forms, is very fragile. it is risky business to live.

Miraculously along the way things generally go pretty much the way that they are expected to but alas, and all too often, life is interrupted and even cut short.

I know it was only a frog but it became a parable to me. I even thought it might be a parable for all the graduates in our community. The miracle to see as you go through life is that once-in-awhile something "hatches" even when it seems like most of the time nothing does. To succeed in life always do your best to nurture the newness of life given to you and trust God for the rest.