Pondside in Passion Week

My heart sang as I sauntered through the orchard and down to the pond. “Spring is coming! Birds are back!” Eager to check on the nesting Canada goose mama I had discovered a few days earlier, I approached the bank of the pond.

I was not prepared for what I saw before I even got within view of the nest. My heart sank with the scene – near the bank of the pond was a wide area of orchard grass thick with scattered feathers. A single large white goose egg lay off to the side, broken and empty.

Evidently a wild animal (or more than one) had raided the nest. Judging by the size and condition of the feather patch, a fierce struggle had ensued between the mother bird and the raider.  “Maybe,” I told myself, “one of the goose parents had even fought to its death.”

I also told myself that this is the way of nature. One animal species becomes food for another. This is simply reality within the creature world. Still, I ached for the mother.

I had seen her. She had seen me. Days earlier, I had inwardly squealed with delight the moment I spotted the settled mama goose marking this year’s nesting site. She had acknowledged my presence by half rising off her nest and opening her mouth to strictly forbid me to come any closer. When I took some pictures of her, she began calling to her mate in desperate honking tones. He had landed on the water near her just moments after I had turned toward home so she could nest in peace.

Now, looking at the pitiful jumble of feathers at my feet, I somehow felt her loss. I moved over to the edge of the pond to see if there was anything at all left in the nest proper. It was empty, except for some fragile bits of gray goose down impaled on nest straws and fluttering in the bleak breeze. Suddenly a comforting thought came to me. He sees. If one tiny sparrow can’t fall without the Father knowing, surely His eye had been on the mother goose and her in-the-making goslings, and had noted their demise.

Why did I feel so sad for the geese pair? Partly, I think, because I had been there. I had seen them and their nest and had noted their parental concern for their young. I had invested a piece – albeit a tiny little piece – of my time and energy, a part of myself, in this bird couple. I felt sorrow because of connection.

It was a little like my feelings upon receiving the news of Notre Dame – a grand building on fire at that very moment. I felt sadder at the news than I would have normally because I had been there. I had visited that famous Gothic cathedral in Paris, France. I had stood outside it, looking at the unique architecture, seeing the flying buttresses in real life after studying them in Grade 7 Social Studies and sketching a Notre Dame picture in my scribbler. I had stood inside it, looking at the tall, stained glass-windowed interior and feeling the reverent mood of the dim, hushed candlelit sanctuary. Picturing all this aflame brought me a more poignant ache because of having been there.

If I feel deeper sorrow because of connection, how much more must God sorrow with us in the brokenness and fire that we experience? I believe He cares most fiercely because of what He has invested in our griefs. He is present to comfort in any of our sorrows because He has experienced them already. He was there at Calvary. If ever anyone gave a piece of their time and energy to another, it was He. It seems paltry – almost sacrilegious – to describe it that way, because of how fully He was there. In Jesus, God gave Himself.

I wonder if Jesus felt all the hurt in the whole wide world for all time in the Cross experience. Perhaps that is why, in Lamentations 1:12, the invitation is given to “see if there be any sorrow like unto His sorrow”. And why, in Mark 14:34, it was called “exceeding… unto death.” Unlike my connection to the geese or the Paris cathedral, Jesus’ connection has purpose. His sorrow means something. He bore our griefs and carried our sorrows because Love rescues and redeems.

Not only was Jesus there on the Cross, He also was fully there in the resurrection – He IS the Resurrection! He is present in every joy, every great delight, every powerful victory over evil, every redemption that we experience. In every tinge and hint of hope, in every sprout, blade, and bud, every sprig and twig of new life, He was already present on the first Easter morning. Hallelujah! This also is a comfort.

Next spring, I look forward to scouting out the pondside for the Canada geese parents’ new nesting site.

This Post’s Quotable:

Kayleen was making a cup of tea for herself at bedtime and wondered if her sister wanted some, too. She must have been thinking of a phrase from Psalm 51 when she worded her question. “Kerra,” she asked, “do you desire tea in the inward parts?”

This Post’s Childhood Memory:

When I was a preschooler, and we still lived at “our first place” in Northwoods Beach, we sometimes kept chickens in the little shed out back. Here are some of my impressions of the baby chicks:

-       * Dad or Mom went to the feed mill in town to pick up the chick order.

-       * The wide and shallow cardboard boxes that the chicks came in had breathing holes spaced around the sides and in the lids.

-       * A small group of baby chicks in a box can make a large peeping noise.

-       * One quite new chick is the dearest sort of yellow fluff ball you will probably ever lay your eyes on.

-       * It is a very scary but thrilling thing to actually hold a chick in your hand. (It is not so thrilling if the chick goes to the bathroom on your hand.)

-       * A chick’s feet make the lightest of fine, cold pricks in your palm. Its dance kind of tickles your hand – and your heart.

-       * When the baby chicks are taken out of their box and carefully placed onto the straw-covered (or was it wood shavings?) floor, they huddle together under the red bulb of the heat lamp to keep warm.

-       * You can’t help but giggle when a chick darts out of its sibling cluster and zips around to nowhere in particular.

-       * After a chick takes a drink at the water fountain, it lifts its beak into the air. Mom told us this is the chick looking up to God and saying thanks.

What was especially meaningful to you this Easter?