How Dumb Do You Gotta Be..?

Walking the dog yesterday afternoon, I happened upon some Canadian geese just recently returned from their southern hiatus. They had found the open waters of what was Airdrie's beginning: Nose Creek. During the summer months this tiny creek is barely there – more of a marshy bog really, but during spring thaw, it overflows its banks and floods out the small park and green space to which it runs adjacent.

​Usually the geese gather a couple of blocks east where a large collector pond was dug and where later in the year hundreds of geese gather to form their south-bound flocks. Yesterday, the pond was still white with snow, no visible open water in sight. I noticed that there were many tracks in the snow - right in the middle of the pond and that each set was accompanied by the belly imprint of a large bird that had hiked up its landing gear and come to a sudden and surprised halt in the snow. The ultimate winter belly flop; the mental picture of which had me bursting with laughter.

Obviously the instinctive inner clock of the goose reported it was time to return to their nesting grounds in Airdrie. And their inner GPS took them right to the pond, but could they not see that the pond was covered in snow? Did they think we were trying to hide the pond from them? Did they think there’d be water directly beneath the snow? And how surprised were they to hit that snow (and ice beneath) with a resounding thud rather than the smooth water landing they were expecting?
How dumb do you gotta be to be a goose?

Now, I know some of you will immediately come to their defense and many articles and even books have been written about the intelligence and fortitude of these magnificent birds. And quite frankly, I was happy to see them – especially this year, for the return of our water fowl means that Spring is indeed imminent. That life moves forward. That there is hope.

Many of us have had our lives put on hold and it seems the whole world is holding its collective breath while we await the end of this horrid COVID-19 pandemic. But for those of us who know the One who created heaven and earth, the One who flung the stars, there is a quiet calm, for we know Who holds the universe in His hand. The joy of the LORD is our strength and in Him we trust. The LORD has promised us in Gen 8:22, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”

​The melting of the snow and the arrival of the geese – wherever they land - bear witness to the promises of God - with some added comic relief.