There’s a French boy in my daughter’s class. It is a very multicultural school–26 languages spoken in total–but it is the French kid whose cultural difference gets most discussion time at our dinner table. Probably because he tends to be bit naughty. He’s always up to something, and has never yet been awarded Star of the Day. Which is the big deal when you are four years old. (Who am I kidding? It would still be a big deal for me today, if the church where I work handed out such things. Probably a good thing that they don’t, come to think of it.)
Anyways, we hear about France. And Beangirl comes home singing French songs. Which is nice. Her pronunciation is quite cute. But now she wants to teach the class a Canadian song, to contribute her own bit of cultural flare. And she can’t think of one.
So, she and I started working on “My paddle’s keen and bright.” Perhaps not explicitly national, but it is nicely evocative. She wanted to know what it was about. I told her it was about canoeing. And the geese, Mummy? I started to talk about migratory patterns, weather, and navigation when she interrupted and told me that probably the geese lived at the far end of the lake with the person doing the canoeing and that they were both going home. Good enough for me.
I can’t say that the song is about faith, but it does make me think. About work, my own efforts, about guidance and rhythm. And, as well as being Canadian, wild geese are evocative of our faith. This might rings bells for those of you with an awareness of the Iona Community. Throughout the ancient Celtic world, wild geese were a symbol of the Holy Spirit. I encountered this symbol in Spain, where the Catholic Way of St. James is marked with references to the flight of wild geese and the way of the geese. It is difficult to know whether these references originate from that earlier network of Celtic Christianity. It is also possible that this image is one that predates the church (Catholic and Celtic), but was used by the church to describe the work and nature of God.
Either way, it is a beautiful image. The Spirit of God, soaring and wild.
It’s a rich image, too, and perhaps not always easy. Geese are noisy. They hiss and squawk. They are awkward when walking, though graceful in flight. They can be a nuisance and are difficult to ignore. How fitting because how many times has the church been disturbed, awoken by the disturbing presence of our disruptive God, calling again for renewal and change. The Spirit of God is wild, and cannot be tamed or contained.
And geese flying in formation can fly much farther and faster than they can individually. There’s a nice solid reiteration of trinitarian relational theology for you. God, the three-in-one, is “best” in community–not just seen as Creator or Christ or Comforter, but as all three and in relation internally, too. And we are made in the image of this relational God. We find life together. Together, we are stronger. And perhaps more graceful, too, in flight.
And, on top of all that, I do like the idea that the wild geese live at the other end of the lake, and that if I follow them, paddling in rhythm and with all my might, I will get home, too.
Lead thou me on.
