Is this the Lent of snow geese, or what?
I am sitting in my living room reading, and the warm spring-like day has dissolved into dark coolness. I think I hear geese in the distance, but it is not the familiar honk of Canada geese. I open the front door and walk out on the porch to listen.
From about a half mile away, somewhere in the night sky, drift sounds. The mellow honkings are similar to the snow geese I heard, saw and wrote about last weekend. But here in Grantham we are 35 miles west of their Middle Creek flyway, and I am surprised. I know so little about snow geese, and the noise soon fades.
The arctic is so far away. The night with no moon is so dark. Yet they are such determined creatures to get those nests built and eggs laid. How far will they travel tonight? When will they pause to rest? How long to reach Canada? How long to reach the arctic circle? For a few moments their world of flying, of migration, of instinct and ice intersects with my grounded, local, temperate, rational routine. In the chilly silence they have left behind, I hear something of my own longing. Silly. Longing for what? I don’t know. I go inside and close the door.
But that’s it. There is so much of God’s creation about which I just don’t know. I should have been a biologist (as if teacher, musician, pastor hasn’t been enough?) so that I can follow and observe these moving creatures. Their geographical world is so much bigger than mine, so wild.
But I can’t fly in the dark. I can’t live on the tundra. I fall on the ice. The snow geese remind me of my human limitations. This Lenten season snow geese have left me with a longing humility. Can someone please explain?
jnkuebler says
I am thinking of T.H. White’s “The Once and Future King” (and its sequel), in which Arthur lives as a snow goose for a while…
I listened to geese sounds filling the sky this morning on our morning walk. But I have no idea how to distinguish the sounds of snow and Canada geese… They all fill me with longing and joy.
Elaine Dent says
Now I’m curious. Sounds like reading the book is called for. As for identifying the calls of snow geese, as far as my internet and bird book browsing could tell, there are only the two kinds of geese that migrate on the Atlantic flyway. Does anyone else know? If it is not the one, good chance it is the other.