A PARABLE (OR PERHAPS AN ALLEGORY) FOR TODAY

   We are blessed by being about a block away from one of Eugene's several bike paths/walking trails. We try to take advantage of that convenience as often as possible, often walking about two miles of the path through the Wetlands area on the west end of town.  We usually see some of the birds that inhabit these wetlands on a continuing basis -- ducks, herons, sometimes egrets and during the spring season of the year, Canada Geese that come together to nest and just congregate.  We have learned some of their ways as we have walked and watched.  They come in varying size groups, from two to a few hundred.  The behavior of the larger flocks is especially interesting.
  There are a few large fields where these flocks settle down during the days and nights.  Most are farming fields where some crops are planted, but at this time of year the young plants are just sprouting to begin their spring and summer growth.  The geese seem to love these fields especially.
  When we walk by the huge grouping of these avian season visitors on the ground their noisy honking is sort of random and muted.  It does go on all the time, but once in a while it seems that some one of the group senses either a threat or a desire just to relocate.  It makes more noise than usual as it takes off and somehow stimulates others around it to share their fears or their wander-lust, and an entire group joins in the mounting cacophony as they rise up and start heading in no particular direction.  Often that smaller group is the beginning of a general uprising as an entire flock of two or three hundred head for the skies toward no specific destination.
  As we watch the group it is not a consistent whole.  There are any number of different skeins of geese within the larger group, each with its own leadership and sense of which direction the group should take.  Sometimes the whole group goes in a huge circle that takes it back to its beginning point.  Sometimes the smaller skeins go elsewhere.  Sometimes that group seems to decide it made the wrong choice and heads back to join up with the larger group again.  Wherever they end up it seems there are always more gees landing than just the one group that started.  Stragglers join in from several different directions.
  Recently I observed something that struck me as more odd than usual.  The field where a couple of groups had landed had a pool of standing water in it from a recent rain with one raise muddy area where they could get from one side of the field to another.  What struck me was that one goose chose walk across that mud bridge, then another, and soon a whole line of geese was walking in singe file from one part of the field to another that was just the same as the one they had left.  And more were lining up to play follow the leader!
  Please forgive me, but I could not help drawing some lessons from what I thought of as "silly geese."  Perhaps they explain a lot of the behaviors that we human beings engage in aw well.
  First, I wonder if a lot of the leaders we choose to follow are simply those who make the most noise or magnify the significance of a perceived risk or just "march to a different drummer."
  Second, I wonder it, when they take off, they really have a specific destination in mind or if they just want to take different direction to get back to a generally similar place to their departure point.
  Third, I wonder if we choose to all into line with a file leader that just acts like she/he knows that lies ahead instead of having a real plan.
  Fourth, I wonder if those leaders glimpse the risks involved at the place they want to lead others.  Is it really safe of an invitation to destruction?
  It seems to me as a Christian that there is really only one safe, sane, generous, loving Leader to choose to follow.  In Hebrews 12 we are instructed to "Fix our eyes on Jesus, the Author and File-Leader of our faith."  Listening to Him and keeping "in step with" His "Spirit," we need not fear the directions and destination to which He is leading us.  His ultimate goals is always the same for each and every one of His followers -- "I have come that they might have life, and have it to the full" (John 10:10).
  I know it is easy to get distracted by the loudest voices in the crowd.  It is always tempting to choose to follow someone who acts like they know the way we should go.  It is sometimes difficult to walk in a different direction from the great crowd going in the opposite direction.  All I can say is that the majority is NOT always right, the loudest shouter is not usually spouting truth, and the direction of the most charismatic leader does not always lead to the most positive destination.
  Unlike the silly geese, we are most our own when we choose to follow the one Leader who really knows the end from the beginning and shows us the way to get there -- JESUS.  In this crisis time in our world, there is really One worth listening to and walking with.  He guards our ways and protects us as we choose His Way of Life and to Life.
  I love geese, and humans.  But I love Jesus best!

Dr. Moose