Why the Geese?

One of my favorite seminary professors was Gerhard Frost of Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota., who died in 1988.  The last book he wrote was titled Homing in the Presence, Meditations for Daily Living (Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1978)  This is what Gerhard did: he carried a notebook with him and wrote reflections and poems on things he observed in the world.

On the cover of this book are geese flying, and he writes the following in the Introduction:

One dark evening in mid-November, I was waiting for a bus in Teaneck, New Jersey, when I was startled by what sounded like the honking of wild geese.  It can’t be so, I thought.  I must have brought it with me, this Minnesota sound. . . . . .

The next morning at the same intersection, I heard the sound again.  This time, though, I could see!  I hadn’t been imagining things after all . . . . .All during that day, I felt as if I’d been visited by deep meaning.  These geese, I thought, go back a long way.  Before there was a Boston, or a New York City, or a Baltimore, the wild geese were making their way down the Eastern seaboard.  For centuries, they’ve responded to the call of the seasons and they’ve homed in God’s world.  Their journeys, their repeated homings, are suggestive for me. . . . . .As I think about those geese, I’m filled with a sense of belonging.  I know that God is my home.

This book invites you to reflect on the inward journey.  It is the longest journey of all, the journey home.  It is a journey toward knowing God and being known by him.  It is, itself, a sharing and a homing in the everlasting mercy.

Theologically, we all leave home and go on a journey, a journey which will take us to our final home.  There is tremendous meaning in the concept of home: it is rich, and deep, and so varied for each of us.  But there is also deep meaning in the journey itself. 

Gerhard taught me how to watch the world, and my own life, more closely, and to search along the journey for the manifold ways God is at work in both.