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Newsletter

What did I hear at Drakensville?

Step up to the plate …. and fly with me.

At the camp last year, the feeling was that the Lord said, “Step up to the plate”. This year it was as if we had taken up positions “at the plate” and he said, “Now run with me”; or rather, “fly with me” if we can use Cicely’s metaphor of the flying geese.  Geese in flying formation can fly seventy one percent further than any other flock of birds because they use each other’s slip stream. The leader takes the brunt of the wind resistance and the others enjoy a progressive rest in the wake of the one ahead of him. The leader stays in front for only a couple of minutes and then goes right to the back to rest. They need such a system because they are going somewhere. They are on a journey.

They have a destination, and an ability to reach it that is programmed into them as part of their DNA. It is not a journey forced on them by some outward pressure – they fly because that is what they do best. Sparrows don’t need formation flying because they are not going anywhere. You don’t need to remain in another bird’s slipstream if the only flying you do is from food to roof and back to food.  Not that there is something wrong with sparrows or that flying in formation is the thing all of us should do! There are times when we do fly from roof to food and back and there are times when something in us rises up and we feel we are ready for a journey. It is like the call of the wild.

The geese have in their bodies everything they need for this journey. The stirring is there, the muscles, the wings, the heart; the caring for each other is built into their cells. When one of them cannot continue, two other birds leave the formation with him and stay with him until he is rested enough to continue. They did not learn this from ‘Discipleship 101’ or by going to some church service or a camp. They did not have to read books on ‘compassion’ or ‘flying in formation’. They have it programmed into their very being and they just do what is natural. They just let the goose in them go into action and they fly.