I was fully awake, the frigid air having greeted me at my back door. Gazing skyward, I saw them: wild geese.
I’m accustomed to local geese flying from the pond just beyond the field behind our house to another pond on the other side of the highway. From where I stand, both ponds are beyond my view, but my grandson and I have hiked or driven to one a mile or so from our house to watch the geese frolic in the water during spring and summer, geese and ganders leading the waddling goslings in a line to the water’s edge before they float on. I grin when I hear them honking as they fly low. Being no expert on waterfowl, I affectionally refer to them as neighborhood geese.
But the wild geese flying overhead early the other morning seemed different. For one thing, it was a larger flock, able to complete a perfect “V” formation. And then, they were flying much higher, near the clouds, determined to get somewhere, flapping and honking like they were late for an appointment in rush hour traffic.
Were these interlopers Canadian geese on a longer journey? Where were they going?
Canadian geese do fly south. But not as far as I’d imagined. No sunscreen and Ray-Bans on Ipanema Beach for these birds, although many fly as far as Tennessee or other states in the south.
And I may be all wrong. Perhaps my local geese happened upon a puddle of discarded Red Bull and, having drunk themselves into an adrenalin frenzy, took to the sky, propelled to the stratosphere by their caffeine boost.
I don’t think so.
I suspect the wild geese I saw were on a journey to parts unknown. Responding to an innate call, they flew higher and higher in their adventure, being nothing more and nothing less than who they were created to be: wild geese.
Like those geese, we are most ourselves when we become the persons God created us to be: free and wild, yet captive and tamed. The geese were on a journey of sorts, not by faith, of course, but they were compelled, drawn forward, or in their case, southward.
The Advent journey has begun. Mary, the mother of Jesus, knew something about a journey. Having said “Yes” to God, she didn’t know where the Lord was taking her. She only knew she was to follow. Her step of faith would take her on a bumpy road to Bethlehem, and after that, where? She didn’t know. But she was willing to go.
For many, this time of year is too predictable. We gather, we wait, we celebrate. We do it yearly until the same ol’ same ol’ devolves into a rut of faithless distractions. The mystery has evaporated.
But wait: the same Lord who was born at a point in time is ever the Risen Lord. He who made himself known to us in the New Birth is born again and again in us, beckoning us to new adventures in unknown places as we say “Yes” to Him. We may travel the same Advent journey year after year. Yet, it’s never the same with Him as our trusted and mysterious Guide, ever calling us to higher ground, into the cloud of unknowing, that mystical land of no horizons, where He reveals himself most fully. The path, not always clear— and sometimes fraught with dangers near and far, tempting us to wallow in the pit of despair—is also paved with smooth stones and that one gentle Light, illuminating our path with clarity as we walk step by step, ever so fearfully, (and in our better moments, by faith courageously), with the Christ child behind us, the Risen Lord beyond us, and the Spirit of God within us, step by step, hand in hand with us.
Disappearing into the clouds, the wild geese left a wisp of cloud vapor, like a trail.
I narrow my eyes: Is that trail teasing me to latch on?
Convinced it would be a decent place to begin this year’s Advent journey, I say, “Yes.”