Reflections on a family of geese

A cheerful heart is good medicine. Proverbs 17:22

Somebody posted a lovely Facebook video today. It showed a family of geese – mummy-goose, daddy-goose and a line of half a dozen fluffy little mini-gooses (whatever they’re called) holding up traffic in a busy south London suburb.

The police were out: at least one patrol car and a couple of motor-bikes. The officers did their valiant best to shepherd the geese off the road and onto some safe grassy spot. They didn’t have an easy time: daddy-goose in particular had a clear mind of his own, and the officer dealing with him had to make a couple of sharp backward steps to avoid a painful nip in the leg. I suspect the police would have been more at ease chasing a bunch of criminals.

But people walking by thought it was very funny (as did I) and even passing drivers didn’t seem to object to being held up. Everyone was smiling. (And yes, the police were smiling too.)

I thought: it’s good to have something to smile about, especially in these rather solemn days we’re living through. Whereupon what popped into my mind? Answer: Proverbs 17:22, a verse that I think a modern psychologist would heartily agree with: “A cheerful heart is good medicine…” Yes indeed, that cheering little drama did us good.

That led me to the obvious question: How cheerful a heart do I have, not just for a few minutes during a health crisis when something delightful happens, but in more normal times as well?

I’m not forgetting that there are times when cheerfulness of heart is a genuine impossibility, times when tears of sorrow are natural, right and indeed healthy. Shallow, forced good-humour is not expected of even the most devout Christian; Jesus was never afraid, or ashamed, to weep.

But I think we make a mistake if we assume that our day-to-day mood is not something, generally speaking, that we can actually control. Much of the time we can choose to be grumpy, or choose to be blithesome (if I may fish a beautiful word out of the past).

We all know the lift we feel when a particular individual comes into the room. They don’t necessarily come in cracking jokes, but you know that the whole atmosphere is going to lighten up a notch just because they are there.

And so the challenge again: am I that kind of person? Or do I make excuses for myself, claiming that it’s “just my temperament”, “just the way I happen to be”, that makes me a bit of a grump? Let none of us say that we can’t change! With God, after all, all things are possible.

But… wait a minute! All this may be well and good, but isn’t there something deeper that can be said about a cheerful heart? I think there is.

You sometimes hear it said that there are people who are “comfortable in their own skins”. By which is meant: they are inwardly at peace, not always striving for things beyond their reach, not ambitious in an unrealistic or wrong way, not unhealthily “driven”. I think it’s people like that who come across as being cheerful-hearted.

And this is why we as Christians can cultivate a cheerful heart.

When we first put our trust in Christ our sins are forgiven, we are reconciled to God as our Father, we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit – the Spirit of peace – and we are incorporated into God’s family. Since then, little by little, we are being remade to become the people we were originally intended to be. And so, in a quiet and gentle way, we can’t help but be cheerful.

To put it in a single sentence: when you come to Christ you find your true identity; you become the real you, no longer the you who is at odds with yourself, with the world and with God.

The Anglican prayer-book says that to be a servant of God is “true freedom”, which of course seems nonsense: how can you be both a servant and free? But it’s true. And in the same way, when we lose our identity in Christ, we in fact find our true identity.

That is the way of inner peace and a cheerful heart, with or without a family of geese to help us along. Is it the way you have found, the way you are walking? Why not start today?

Jesus take me as I am,/ I can come no other way./ Take me deeper into You,/ Make my flesh life melt away./ Make me like a precious stone,/ Crystal clear and finely honed,/ Life of Jesus shining through,/ Giving glory back to you. Amen.

By Dave Bryant.