The Parable of the Gosling

You may not know this about me, but I have adopted a tree.

There is a particular tree just off the parking lot at St. Benedict's Retreat and Conference Centre that reached out and inserted itself into my awareness one year when I was on a retreat, and became for me a tangible reminder to let my roots go down deep into God's marvellous love. It reminds me that first and foremost rooting myself in God's love and life is the best gift that I can offer in ministry, as I seek to become a presence of stability and longevity for my community. Now, the pendant I wear around my neck depicts a tree, so that I can carry those reminders with me daily wherever I go.

This year, a Canada goose has built her nest at the foot of my tree, beside that same parking lot. We watched throughout the week-end as she carefully nurtured those eggs, until late yesterday five wee goslings emerged and we watched them take their first tottering footsteps, following behind their mother as the father goose hissed warnings at anyone who dared to come a little too close.

New life is beautiful!

This morning, when I went outside after breakfast, the family of geese was nowhere to be seen. But there remained in the nest two eggs. One appeared perfectly intact. The other had a hole at one end about the size of a quarter.

I crept gradually closer, realizing that the adult geese were no longer nearby, and as I drew near I could tell that some of the bird song that I could hear was actually coming from the nest, from inside of the cracked egg. As I stood there keeping vigil, suddenly there was movement, and I could see a tiny beak poking at the shell at the margins of the opening.

And yet, the longer I stood there, the more apparent it became that the mother goose was no longer nearby, and the wee baby was struggling to find the strength to enlarge the opening so that it could emerge from the egg. It would poke and chirp away, moving a loose fragment of shell a few fractions before it would fall right back into its place again.

How badly I wanted to go over and help the baby out--enlarge the opening for it, urge it out of its shell--but I am not a mother goose, and I know that my intervention will not help this wee one with its predicament. If the mother returns, it is likely to do more harm than good, and if the baby is not strong enough to emerge from its shell then it's unlikely to survive on its own without a parent to care for it.

But there is something that is holy, sacred, about bearing witness to the beauty of this life--about hearing its song, and seeing its presence, and recognizing the creative presence of God in it. About seeing it and naming it as beautiful, even if its life is to be so much shorter than seems fair or right or good.

Eventually, moved by the heartache of recognizing that this baby might not manage the transition from life inside of the shell to growth outside of it, I walked on, but eventually I returned to the parking lot on my way back inside.

Beside the egg, another young woman had taken up my vigil, watching the nearly-born gosling and marvelling at God's good creation, wishing there was more that she could do but recognizing that bearing witness would have to be enough.

And I was reminded that the work of bearing witness is not mine alone, but belongs to the community of faith, the Church.