So I packed up my struggle with a sermon and my struggle with a headache and drove to Middle Creek where I found white on white on blue: sails on cirrus on sky; feathers on ice on lake. It was the migration of the snow geese. White, white and blue etched with black, that is. Black tips of wings in formation etched imaginary lines in the air. Snowy pairs coasted through curled black tree branches. And on glistening, iced water, a single black stick of leg could balance a sleeping pillow of goose down.
If I had little to say for a sermon, they had so much more. With a stadium roar and a flurry of wing beats, a thousand lifted in a mass to circle and stretch. “A hurricane,” shouted excited children as they raced in the field and mirrored the flocks in the air. After a few rounds, every creature settled again in the sunlight with a slightly different point of view.
What does this have to do with the 15th day of my Lenten journey, 3/8 of the way to Easter? What is the connection with loving God and loving others, the theme this Lent? I have no idea, except to notice that, on their way from southern feeding to tundra nesting, the snow geese are taking special delight with this particular pause in their journey. Not only that, they are sharing their feathered joy with the rest of us. Pausing for joy seems a good thing. Now back to a sermon.
(Oh no, she just spent a blog talking about birds again!)
Daisy says
lol
I seem to recall that should one of the geese be unable to fly for whatever reason during migration, one or two of the others will stay behind with the injured one either until it is able to take off or until it dies. Did I just make that up? Anyhow, thought that had some relevance to the loving others theme…
Mich
PS. Found this info about geese:
http://suewidemark.com/lessonsgeese.htm
Elaine Dent says
That is an intriguing fact about geese. I’ll have to check around. I did notice one goose all by itself on the ice while some were on the other side of the lake. Tried to tell if it was alive or not, but couldn’t. Thanks for the the website.