Trust: We can't get on together in suspicious minds

I woke up feeling a little tired in my heart, body and spirit last Monday. I got up, prepared myself spiritually for the day, ate and dressed. I then turned on the BBC news. It was probably not the best idea. All I heard were reports of violence and abuse. Whether on line, or the brutal murder of another public figure, the M.P. David Amess. I drove into Altrincham and listened to the radio, my attention was drawn to an item reporting on the increase in online abuse over the last eighteen months, with a particular focus on the young women who were contestants on the reality TV Show “Love Island”. I arrived at my office, turned on the computer, sent off a couple of emails and made a few connections. I then set off to the supermarket for some food for the day, not in the best spirits, suspicious of the world and the people in it. Passing lots of groups of school children, who just seemed caught up in themselves, I was thinking to myself I wonder what cruelty some of them inflict on each other today. I was not in good spirits.

I returned following the same route I had left by, again passing school children in their uniforms, like groups of sticks of Blackpool rock, the kids round here have fancy uniforms. As I was nearing the town centre I noticed three teenage girls standing together around a sleeping homeless man outside A Plan insurance, what was once, Dawson’s music shop. Above the sleeping man was a sign reading “Public Liability Insurance”. If only something could save us from ending up in such a desperate situation. It is a distressing sight and a growing problem is this affluent town. A real contrast to the lives of we privileged folk. As I passed by I looked closely at the man and the girls. One of the girls had their phone out and the other two looked like they had grins on their faces, I was suspicious and concerned, so I began to approach them. I thought they may be mocking him and taking a picture. I asked them what they were doing? No sooner had I mouthed the words, I realised. My perception was completely wrong; it couldn’t have been more wrong actually. One of the girls had a fifty pence coin in her hand and what they were actually doing was trying to find a way to leave the man the money without waking him or disturbing him, the grin was one of nervousness. I said, “good girls” and went on my way into the day. Unlike them I passed by, if not on the other side. The image has stayed with me since and got me thinking about so many things. Especially about perception, suspicion, trust and distrust. How we are influenced by what we see and how others are influenced by what we do, what they see. It also got me thinking about how events can quickly change a persons perception and how vital it is to keep our senses open and respond to what is going on in the world in which we live and breathe and share our being, for it matters you know, it really does. There is no real neutrality in life. I’m glad I was awake to the world that morning despite feeling somewhat tired and dispirited, I have not done so since. Thank God.

Well I did a little as I went to Wednesday night after watching “Four Hours at the Capitol” a film showing the scenes and telling the story of the January 6th insurrection at the US Capitol Building. It was hard watching reexperiencing those terrivble events from only a few months ago. We live in challenging times, throughout our world. I am deeply concerned for liberal democracy.

We seem to be living in an age of distrust. Folk are increasingly suspicious of those around them. A feeling that is fed by a variety of sources. Some blame the media, an easy scapegoat. The truth is that individuals on social media are just as responsible for feeding their own fears and negativities. We are the media, it is not a separate entity from the rest of humanity. Just another former idol we have grown to distrust. Without some level of trust we cannot function, whether as individuals or as a society. Without a level of trust liberal democracy collapses and look what happens when this occurs. We only need remember the horrors of mid twentieth century Europe to see the results. Surely no one wants that to be repeated ever again.

Sadly we don’t trust anymore, we are suspicious, people feel frightened of so many things and respond from this place at times. I did on Monday morning. I was suspicious of three teenage girls who were actually doing something beautiful.

We need trust, it is an intrinsic aspect of human nature. It is the foundation of healthy psychological development, first established in the bond between infant and caregiver, a process facilitated by the hormone oxytocin. Trust is defined most simply as the expectation that other people's future actions will safeguard our interests. Without trust social life and society cannot exist. We trust others all the time as we hand ourselves over to the expertise and care of others. We yield some of our control and autonomy over our money, secrets, safety, all the things we value. Without trust, we would be paralysed, and social life would grind to a halt. It is trust, not money, that makes the world go round, that powers society. Without trust, we do not function. Trust may well be what Hobbes really meant by the Leviathan.

Perhaps the problem in so much of our lives and society is that we no longer trust. We don’t trust ourselves, we don’t trust one another, we don’t trust life itself. This is perhaps why we live in so much fear.

What can we do? Is there a solution? Well, I believe that there is. It began in what I bore witness to on the streets of Altrincham, under that “Public Liability Insurance” sign. It is up to us. It begins with taking the little risks that are needed, to offer some care. To trust that the care will be received and returned. To live with a little bit faith. Faith in ourselves, faith in each other, faith in life, faith in God, however we understand God. Faith is not a passive thing though, it comes alive in our actions and activities. The book of James stated “Faith without works is dead.” Well I have learnt that true faith is in the works. Faith either grows and diminishes in and through our works, how we live. It doesn’t come in the big things, it comes in the little things, “Thus saeth the Lord”

It comes in how we are in the coffee shop and supermarket, or on the phone when some poor customer service person makes their fiftieth call of the day. How we are with the person collecting money for another worthy cause. Do we occasionally stop, or do we do all we can to avoid them? Do we sneer sometimes? Do we give, without asking someone what they are going to spend the money on? I saw this the other day outside Marks and Spencer. Why ask what the homeless person is going to spend your fifty pence on, when you already know, why make them feel any smaller than they already do. Offer a smile to the stranger in the street, just for the heck of it. Let them know that you know that life is ok. Not yet paradise, but ok. This maybe the first smile they have seen in a long time. Talk to stranger about the most mundane of things, especially the weather, it is what connects us all after all. Stop criticising everyone you see for the way they dress, or the way they car they drive. It is not just on social media where such activities take place, they happen in every street too. Thank the bus driver, the delivery man, the person in the bank, the postie, you may be the first person to do so today. Don’t take the last parking space, let someone else believe in “The God of parking space”, at least for one day. Don’t argue every point, listen to what each of us must speak, try to understand where the person you disagree with is coming from, whatever they believe about God, the environment, Brexit, Covid and vaccines, try to understand where they are coming from. If you make a judgement, try not to stay in judgement, to stand in that judgement forever. Do not allow difference, to make all the difference.

Now all this on its own will not change the world, but it will make a difference to your little piece of it, the bit you inhabit and you never know you may set of a tidal wave of trust throughout the world. Chaos Theory works for everything. Everything we do and everything we do not do really matters. There is no neutrality in life. Cynicism rules because those with love in their hearts do nothing. Show the cynics how wrong they. How they are cowards who dare not step into the arean of trust, all they dare do is slung mud.

This will not insulate us from suffering, horrible things will still happen, they always do. Often, usually in fact, through no fault of our own. It will though save us from the suffering within the suffering, which leads to despair, a state of hopelessness. You see by living this way our lives will be given meaning and purpose, born by a devotion to life, love and one another. We cannot transcend the suffering that is a part of life, but we can be transformed by it. This though requires us to trust. To trust in one another, to trust in life, to trust in God, however we understand God. We have to take the risk of love, that is trust, it is a natural aspect of humanity, it is there in the infant, sadly somehow through life it is something that we lose, well it can be born again, even when it feels a little lost. It was by me on Monday morning. All I had to do was keep my senses open, go about my normal business and respond to life all around me.

So today I offer a prayer of thanks and praise to three teenage girls, and a homeless man sleeping under a sign reading “Public Liability Insurance” on the streets of Altrincham. I hope that we can all read the signs too. For we are all liable, we are all responsible.

Please find below a video devotion based on the materila in this "blogspot"

The "Miracle" of Letting Go

I have a confession to make. Now please try not to be too shocked, but I have something to confess, which might trouble the most rational amongst you who read this "blogspot". I have to tell you this truth, that I didn’t know I believed in, but I do.

I believe in miracles…

Now don’t get me wrong I am not talking about the kind of miracles that are described in the Gospels , that are said to have taken place at Capernaum, by the Sea of Galilee, possibly the most beautiful place on earth. No, I’m talking about every day miracles that seem to come to life as we struggle and resist and then we surrender and something new emerges,

These thoughts came to me as I struggled with finding a way to begin this piece that you are reading. The hardest part of creating anything is how to begin and how to end. By the way it’s the same in life. The hardest thing is to begin something new, or perhaps, in actual fact, the hardest thing is to end something old.

Which one do you have the most trouble with, beginning something new or ending something old?

There was one thing that I experienced in Israel – Palestine that I’m glad I did, but am not sure that I would like to repeat. Can you guess what it was?

Well it was floating in the Dead Sea, the lowest inland spot on earth. By the way it is something that none of us will probably be unable to do in at some point in the future as it is disappearing.

So, I’m glad I did it, but it was not a very pleasant experience. That said as I have reflected on it, it has revealed something of myself to me.

Now I had a feeling I was not going to enjoy the experience as soon as I discovered I had to wear flip flops, something I do not like doing. Actually I’m not a great lover of beaches full stop. I love walking by the sea and staring out at it, but I do not like beaches very much.

Anyhow we booked into a resort and took the trailer down to the Dead Sea. Everyone else there seemed to be from eastern Europe and were having a wonderful time. I took off my robe and began to walk out into the warm water. It was a windy day and the water was choppy. The ground beneath my feet was rocky. I struggled and stumbled in unfamiliar footwear that began to slide off my feet. I stumbled over a couple of times and cut my foot slightly on the rocks. Not something to do in salty water. I had been careful not to shave that morning as I was warned not to have exposed cuts. So I kept on stumbling and struggling and not at all enjoying the experience and then I found myself up to my waist in warm salty water and I began to lay down, holding onto a post with one hand and one of the flip flops, that had fallen off, in the other. I let go of the post, I let go absolutely and let the salty water support me. Wow! What an amazing experience. There I was floating on the water, being moved around by the tide and the wind. I waved and laughed and just floated. It was lovely, if only for a few minutes. I eventually moved back to the post, struggled to put on the flip flop. I succeeded and then struggled to my feet and stumbled back to shore. I did fall over again, but made it back without too much trouble. I then washed all the salty water away and let Sue have her turn. She had similar struggles, but not with the flip flops.

It was a new and perhaps magical experience, but not one I am desperate to repeat. Now you may ask where was the miracle? Well the miracle was in the fact that I was able to let go, to let the water support me and to experience floating on water. Like so many folk, I do not let go, I do not surrender easily to anything. I’m getting better at it.

I was chatting about this with a friend the other day, about the sweet surrender that comes when we let go. As we talked they mentioned the following poem “The Avowel” by Denise Levertov

“The Avowal” by Denise Levertov

As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain
freefall, and float
into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace.

Gosh if only it was that easy. If we could just lean back and let ourselves fall, believing that this love would sustain us. How often in life do we trust anyone or anything, how often do we trust life at all? How often do we feel we have to control everything and everyone just to get by? Do we trust life? Do we trust each other? Do we trust that the Creator Spirits deep embrace will hold us? Rarely I suspect. The miracle comes, I have come to believe, whenever we act in faith, play our own part in life and not try to control everybody else’s.

Now some people tell me that the struggle is a lack of faith. I do not agree at all. In many ways the struggle is the most faithful thing we ever do.

M. Scott Peck famously wrote in his seminal work “The Road Less Travelled” that “Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult-once we truly understand and accept it-then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”

In some ways living faithfully, spiritually alive, is the most difficult thing we do. It is not easy, it is a struggle. Searching for truth is difficult, understanding what we are here to do is difficult, beginning something new is terrifying and letting go of something old even more so. The answers only really come in the struggle as we fight, and wrestle until we finally surrender and often it just comes, from nowhere, as if it were some kind of miracle.

And when the sweet surrender comes, the same conclusion always follows. A voice somewhere in the core of my being gently speaks to me in a voice less than a whisper, but somehow more than silence "Just keep on doing what you are doing Danny, all is well. Just keep on doing what you are doing." It is not a voice I hear but a deep knowing.

Whenever I think of such struggles with ourselves, with one another, with life, with God I think of Jacob and his struggles in Genesis ch 32.

In the passage Jacob is depicted wrestling with a mysterious man, who it turns out is probably God, although is not clear. As he wrestles with this being, he is grievously hurt, but he fights on. As the night ends and dawn breaks the being tries to leave but Jacob holds on and demands it blesses him as the price for ending the struggle. The being relents and blesses Jacob by giving him a new name “Israel” meaning “one who struggles with God” or as I once heard a friend say “one with whom God struggles.”

Don’t we all wrestle and struggle with ourselves, with others, with life, with God, or perhaps its others, life and God who struggles with us? So many times I have struggled to just experience what was on offer to me for fear of trying something new, or letting go of something old. I am not alone, I know.

What about you? Maybe, maybe not? You decide…

Sometimes we try too hard, sometimes we over think things instead of just allow ourselves to go with life. This seems to happen when we are caught up in storms and or troubles, we try to force it. I am certainly guilty of this, but again I know I am not alone.

I have witnessed a wonderful example of the miracles that can occur when we are able to stop fighting against ourselves, especially our own bodies. I have on a couple of occasions observed and spoken with Martin, an elderly member of one of the congregations I serve. Martin has for some time struggled with walking due to the onset of Parkinson’s disease. Well it seems that his family have discovered a new technique that has helped sufferers to improve their gate and thus reduce falling, the technique is simply to listen to music while moving, it seems that the rhythm helps the sufferer to walk. Who knew that ABBA, Martin's favourite, could bring about miracles. From what I have been told the technique stops the individual from focusing too much on their struggle to walk, instead they get caught up in the rhythm of the music and thus can walk more naturally, it sets them free. It reminded me of “King’s Speech” and how in the film the King was able to overcome his stammer by listening to music while he spoke. It also reminded me of being distracted while taking my driving test and how this allowed me to let go of fear and to simply drive the car. Somehow when we relax and just let things go we somehow find ourselves able to do things that over concentration stops us from doing.
Simple, ordinary, everyday miracles. Not the walking on water types, but the simple walking, speaking and driving kind.

Sometimes all you’ve got to do is surrender to the struggle and suddenly you find yourself able to do the things that you thought you could not.

It’s simple, but it sure aint easy.

Now comes the hard bit, how do I end this "blogspot"? Well the truth is I don’t know. How do I end when the journey continues on? So I thought I’d end with a piece on miracles by Walt Whitman. I will leave it with you and let you form your own conclusions. So please lean back and fall into these words.

“Poem of Perfect Miracles.” By Walt Whitman

REALISM is mine, my miracles,
Take all of the rest—take freely—I keep
but my own—I give only of them,
I offer them without end—I offer them to you
wherever your feet can carry you, or your
eyes reach.

Why! who makes much of a miracle?
As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward
the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in
the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love—or sleep in
the bed at night with any one I love,
Or sit at the table at dinner with my mother,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive, of an
August forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,

Or birds—or the wonderfulness of insects in the
air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sun-down—or of
stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite, delicate, thin curve of the new-
moon in May,
Or whether I go among those I like best, and that
like me best—mechanics, boatmen, farmers,
Or among the savans—or to the soiree—or to
the opera,
Or stand a long while looking at the movements
of machinery,
Or behold children at their sports,
Or the admirable sight of the perfect old man, or
the perfect old woman,
Or the sick in hospitals, or the dead carried to
burial,
Or my own eyes and figure in the glass,
These, with the rest, one and all, are to me
miracles,
The whole referring—yet each distinct and in its
place.

To me, every hour of the light and dark is a
miracle,
Every inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is
spread with the same,

Every cubic foot of the interior swarms with the
same;
Every spear of grass—the frames, limbs, organs,
of men and women, and all that concerns
them,
All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles.

To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion
of the waves—the ships, with men in them
—what stranger miracles are there?

Somebody To Lean On

"Lean on me" Bill Withers

Where do you turn in times of trouble, who or what do you lean on? I turn to people of course I do but for me the most important place I turn in times of trouble is God. These last twelve months I have turned, turned and turned again in difficult times. By turning to that infinite source that is never not there I am then better able to be of service to others. Something I have been able to do so in some pretty dark days these last 12 months, something I have been able to do these last few years.

I have been physically very ill these last two weeks and I have to say that prayer has helped immensely as I have had to just lay down and come to terms with the being completely incapacitated by illness. I have been deeply moved by the offers of help from so many people. It is good to know that you are loved. I have let people help me too. Perhaps this is the greatest gift you can give a person. For if I have learnt anything in life I have learnt that in that space when we give and receive, when we help one another, the Love that is God once again incarnates in life.

I am also grateful for those souls who have helped me in so many ways at different stages in my life. I have been guided during the darker times in my life. I have also been helped by people I have never even met by people who died even before I was born as everyone has. Those who passed on what they knew and helped those in their time and place that have impacted on we who live today. I noticed last week that 24th January was the 44th anniversary of Bill Wilson’s death. He died nine months before I was even born. He was one of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous and the legacy that he has left behind have brought new life to millions of the lost and hopeless. That simple message of love and service that transformed his life and millions of others including me.

I have been carried in so many ways by so many people, often without noticing it. I offer eternal thanks and praise for this.

This brings to mind one of my favourite stories. Ir goes by the name "Heaven and Hell" or sometimes "Chopsticks"...

What are the differences between Heaven and Hell?, a young Zen monk asked an aged Buddhist priest who was renowned for his wisdom.

“There are no material difference,” replied the old monk.

“None at all?” asked the puzzled young monk.

“That’s right. Both Heaven and Hell have a spacious hall with a big pot in the centre in which noodles are boiled, giving off a delicious scent,” said the old priest. “The size of the huge pan, the number of people sitting around the pot and the bowl of sauce placed in front of each diner are the same in both places.”

“The odd thing is that each diner is given a pair of meter-long chopsticks and must use them to eat the noodles.”

“To eat the noodles, you must hold the chopsticks properly at their ends,” the old monk told the young Zen monk.

“In the case of Hell’s kitchen, people are always hungry because no matter how hard they try, they can’t get the noodles into their mouths,” said the old priest.

“But isn’t it the same for the people in Heaven? The junior monk inquired.

“No. They can eat because they each feed the person sitting opposite them at the table. That’s the difference between Heaven and Hell,” explained the old monk.


I love this story, one of my all-time favourites. I have come across several other versions of it from other traditions too. There is an almost identical version that is told from a Jewish perspective. In this tale the chopsticks are replaced with spoons.

In the story Heaven and Hell appear exactly the same and yet they are experienced oh so differently. In Hell all go hungry because everyone tries to feed themselves only, they are purely self reliant. And yet in heaven they attempt to feed one another and are therefore fed in abundance. To me this is as much about the relationships as the food going into one another’s mouths. I believe that we all possess an innate need to serve one another that if we do not do this part of our natural humanity withers away and dies off. By not serving one another we starve our souls.

I think that one of the greatest delusions of the modern era is the myth of self reliance, this idea that as individuals we have all that we need and that we do not need one another. Jeffrey Lockwood in his meditation “to ask is to give” claims that:

“...One of the great blessings of travel is to be put in a position of asking help from others, to be genuinely needful of strangers. Our illusion of self-reliance evaporates as the unexpected and unfamiliar merge into vulnerability. We offer the gift of authentic need, the opportunity for deep trust. We express to another person the most humanizing cross-cultural phrase: “Please help me.”...In our society, self-sufficiency is heralded as a virtue, and chronic dependence on others can be degrading. But never being asked to help another person is isolating, even dehumanizing. In a culture that exalts autonomy, asking for help may be one of the greatest gifts we offer. So much of life has become a calculation of costs and benefits; to ask assistance is to create the opportunity for unconditional giving in raw, spiritual defiance of economic rationality. We become mutually indebted without expectation of repayment. Each person in the relationship becomes a giver and receiver. Each one becomes more human. Each one has something to be thankful for.”

There are several slightly different accounts in the Gospels of Jesus feeding crowds of people. Now there is a real danger of losing the meaning behind these tales by engaging in winding arguments about their factual accuracy; to get hung up on a debate as to whether or not Jesus could feed the thousands of people present with just a few fish and loaves. Is this really what these stories are about? I do not think so. To get hung up on the factual accuracy is to miss the whole point of the teaching behind the story. Mythological tales are not about fact they are about revealing deeper universal truths.

There is a line in one account from Mark’s gospel (Ch 8 vv 1-9) where we hear the words “They ate and were filled”. During a conversation I had with Rev Brian Jackson a sadly recently deceased Methodist minister, this account really came to life. He explained that the story is really about the encounter that goes on between the disciples and the crowd that by feeding them face to face they are serving them, they are ministering to them. Yes the crowd’s physical hunger is met, while at the same time everyone’s spiritual hunger is met. Seemingly everyone ate and everyone was filled, abundantly, to overflowing.

"From you I receive to you I give, together we share and from this we live."

It is not always easy asking for help and not always because of pride. In order to sincerely ask for help we have to trust who or what's hands we are putting our lives in.

I recently came across the following extract taken from “Telling Secrets” by Frederick Buechner

“Trust”

I remember sitting parked by the roadside once, terribly depressed and afraid about my daughter's illness and what was going on in our family, when out of nowhere a car came along down the highway with a license plate that bore on it the one word out of all the words in the dictionary that I needed most to see exactly then. The word was TRUST. What do you call a moment like that? Something to laugh off as the kind of joke life plays on us every once in a while? The word of God? I am willing to believe that maybe it was something of both, but for me it was an epiphany. The owner of the car turned out to be, as I'd suspected, a trust officer in a bank, and not long ago, having read an account I wrote of the incident somewhere, he found out where I lived and one afternoon brought me the license plate itself, which sits propped up on a bookshelf in my house to this day. It is rusty around the edges and a little battered, and it is also as holy a relic as I have ever seen.

...what a beautiful story...

I passed it on to a friend of mine and in reply she sent me the following message...

"Wow!! My mum & sister often see licence plates in the states too, in the traffic or on cars just cruising along in front of them & only yday my sister sent me this......! & this is the license plate they see often."



The name that they see is "Alf", the name of her brother who sadly died...it is no surprise to me that this is the sign they see most often...

“Trust” an interesting word. In whom or what do we trust? What does it mean to trust? I believe that trust is about the heart, more than the head. In many ways it is a matter of faith. James Fowler taught that faith is really about what we trust, pointing out that the word “credo” which one normally translates as “I believe” really means “I trust”. He claims that belief is of the mind but faith and trust is of the heart. Claiming that "Trust" is about passion it’s about embracing life whole heartedly. It’s about awe and humility. It’s an active thing too. It is a way of being and living and breathing and doing. In some ways it resembles hope in that it is something that with give birth to through our own hearts. We gain trust, because we trust wholeheartedly.

Ernest Hemingway said, “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” We become more trusting by living in a trusting way. It’s about having faith in life and ourselves. That said it does not mean that everything will work out as we want it to just because we trust. Sometimes it won’t.

Trust grows like faith if we live with it in our hearts. It grows through trial and error, by reaching out; like love and hope and anything else that really matters. We develop trust by simply trusting. It takes real courage to trust. And of course to have courage is to live whole heartedly.

Trust is not the expectation that everything will work out as we want it too. Trust is more about how we are in any given situation, how we behave in any given situation. Trust is not just about expecting things to work out immediately but that things will come good someday.

Steve Jobs the creature of Apple, who died a couple of years ago said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” Trust is a risk; it is a reaching out without knowing what will come next.

Trust is about something more than ourselves of course. Trust is about relying on more than just our own resources; trust is about learning to rely on the whole of life. It is about leaning on others at times and allowing them to lean on you. It is about more than self. It’s about opening ourselves to one another and to that greater reality that permeates all life. To put it another way. It’s about letting go and letting God.

So in who or what do you trust? In times of trouble who or what do you lean on? Do you trust? Can others trust in you? Something to ponder perhaps...

I’m going to end with a few thoughts by Gunilla Norris titled “Flying with equals” taken from "Journeying in Place: Reflections from a country Garden"

I get a rush of hopeful feeling when I hear geese honking. I have never completely understood why. At first I thought it was because they had the freedom of the skyways . . . something high and romantic . . . something in contrast to my earthbound existence. But lately I have learned more about geese through an article a friend brought to share. This new information has fleshed out that spontaneous inner feeling of mine.

What I learned is that of all the creatures that I can see in this landscape, the geese best represent the communion of saints. They depend on one another. The lead goose does the most work, but when it is tired, it falls back and another takes its place. To be able to rely on others is a deep trust that does not come easy.

The geese fly in the wake of one another’s wings. They literally get a lift from one another. I want to be with others this way. Geese tell me that it is, indeed, possible to fly with equals.

The high honking I hear when I stand on the ground and look up is the sound of encouragement the geese make to keep on flying. It is a loud and happy sound in my ears. I want to honk with others on the journey.