I recently moved my office to the retreat center where I work. It is an incredibly beautiful property, sorely out of place within the busy and cluttered environment of southern California. Every day I take a walk around the small lake that is on the property. I must admit it is a pretty nice way to spend noon day prayer. Just yesterday as I walked around the lake I noticed two Canadian geese. I paused to watch the beauitful and majestic creatures. I am always amazed at their size and their grace. As I continued to walk I noticed they were moving towards me. They began to squack (that is the official term).

It took me a few seconds, but I realized they were squacking at me. “What did I do?” “I am just on a prayer walk.” These were the sentences that went through my head. With each step they swam closer and closer to me. Finally I paused, turned and looked directly at them, and waited to see what they were going to do. To my surprise one of them flew out of the water directly at me. I was shocked and struck with fear.

Thankfully the goose stopped short and simply resigned hiimself to squacking at me some more. As I walked back to my office I was puzzled. What in the world were those geese thinking? The simple and delicate image I had of Canadian geese had been radically altered. They were no longer simply beatiful and majestic creatures. They were wild. They were untamed.

I continued to ponder my experience with the geese. As I thought about creation I was moved to consider the Creator. I suppose much like these geese our Creator is wild as well. No surprise of course, his creation does reflect who he is. The truth was they were truly beautiful, but at the same time completely wild. They weren’t safe, but in a way it made them more beautiful and majestic.

Isn’t this the truth of our God? So often our concepts of God have contained him, made sense of him, tamed him. He certainly is beautiful, but he is indeed wild. He cannot tamed. He cannot be controlled or managed. In a sense, he is not safe.

As we encounter God’s wildness we are struck with reverence and respect. We are wrought with holy fear and adoration.

“Safe? said Mr. Beaver. “Who said anything about safe? Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.” -Mr. Beaver, “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”