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Good morning.

Through the skylight in the extension of our house I’ve been watching skeins of geese flying north after their winter stay in the balmy climes of Scotland. Balmier than Iceland, certainly, where they are probably heading. Inside, I can’t hear them, but were I in the garden it might well be the swell of their loud honking that would alert me to their presence overhead. People who study this behaviour suggest that the geese at the back encourage those in front of them with their distinctive call. And those at the front of that constantly shifting V-shape disrupt the airflow with their wings, so the flight of those behind is easier, more efficient. It’s a majestic sight, certainly, a spring-mirroring of the autumn flight in the opposite direction.

In 1972, Robert McNeish wrote his ‘Lessons from geese’ as part of a sermon preached to his church. Drawing out advice about teamwork from the behaviour of migratory geese, the essay has become a classic in the field of business and life coaching as well as religion. In these contexts, who wouldn’t be tempted to draw life lessons from the familiar yet still remarkable visual experience?

I’m trying to resist this temptation here, and instead reflect on the well-known palindrome which the sight often brings to my mind: ‘do geese see god’. A sentence which is the same whether read forward or backward. As satisfying in its way as the formation of the flying birds themselves. Both speaking of order and sense-making in a sometimes chaotic world.

Creator God, who brings order out of chaos, thank you for those sights and sounds in the natural world which bring us such pleasure; and for the gift of words to describe and enjoy them. Amen.

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