I stepped outside very early this morning to the honking of geese--lots of honking and many geese! It's also 12th Night--the Feast of the Epiphany--the arrival of the King's at the manger and the showing forth of the Christ Child to the world. Funny that for me, the Epiphany would come from geese resounding overhead with honking to wake me up to the new day.
It was a reminder from Mary Oliver's poem, "Wild Geese," that they fly overhead and announce our place in creation.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things....
For Christians, the Epiphany shows forth the Christ Child, and God announces in him "your place in the family of things." He is the Son because he lives his life and lays it down for the Father. We are God's children, in "God's Family" of things--all creation--because we give our lives to Jesus Christ.
I read the poem "Wild Geese" at the funeral of my sister-in-laws" husband--who was killed in a tragic car wreck just 2 weeks after my son's wedding. So the whole family gathered to celebrate his life. When I read this poem, the power came home to me of being in more than the family of things--but of God's creation in which nobody is ever lost.
Wild Geese
by: Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
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