Look Up!

I crossed paths with migratory birds today. With hundreds of feet between us, of course! They were flying south as I walked north.

East Coast living affords a spectacular window into the seasonal movement of feathered friends. Their perfect formations are breathtaking.

Every spring and fall, the flyways are full of activity. And I’m reminded of Mrs. Cassidy, my high school biology teacher. A spirited soul with a touch of quirk, she was famous for her eccentricity and expressions nuanced with all-things-science.

Anyone with the confidence to be herself and shepherd a group of gangly high school students is a hero. But her daily command to “Migrate to your seats!” while shooing us away from her desk after the bell rang made her a legend!

Some students ridiculed her zeal for biology. They were likely bothered by her southern accent and the way she pronounced “organelles” (four syllables, not three!). Or the silk flowers she attached to her headbands. It could have been the crazy sweatshirts she wore. Like the one with an appliqué of a cell diagram.

But it's their loss.

Mrs. Cassidy’s sweatshirt with all its cell parts - like mitochondria and nucleus - helped me smile through college biology! And thanks to her exuberance and focus on migration, I get an extra giggle every year on both sides of winter.

This morning, upon seeing the season’s first V-shape echelon of geese, I stopped to gaze and listen. During my quiet observation of the activity high above, I was overcome by questions more profound than the memory of Mrs. Cassidy.

Might this graceful, flying formation be like a still, small voice calling me? Inviting me, in the midst of life's circumstances and busyness, to look up? To see beyond what my natural eyes can see? To something greater? Toward heaven?

It is said that eternity is written on the heart of every one of us. We’re promised that if we seek, we shall find.