A minor miracle occurred on Friday, May 14, at four-fifteen p.m. on Rt 4, Dixie Highway, in the northern exurbs of Cincinnati, right at the eastbound entrance ramp to the I-275 freeway. Not the kind of miracle that would qualify for Roman Catholic sainthood, unless, of course, there was a good political reason . . . but a miracle, nonetheless, of the sort that warms the heart and reminds one that the human race does have the potential . . . perhaps less often exercised than we would wish, but definitely the potential . . . for salvation. What happened, you ask? Just this: TRAFFIC STOPPED.
Yes, my friends, traffic stopped completely, voluntarily, and willingly, on eight lanes of heavily-travelled local roadway at the start of Friday afternoon rush hour. People smiled. Not one horn was honked; not one irate idiot attempted to pull out and run up the shoulders to short-circuit the block. Roughly five hundred strangers in various vehicles sat patiently for approximately seven minutes . . . watching a family of wild geese, numbering about ten adults and twenty-something gawky, slow-moving adolescents, cross the road.
The geese were proceeded by a band of four adults, carefully gauging the traffic, the wind, and the goal -- a low-lying drainage ditch overgrown with florid plant life which one not-exactly-familiar with what wild geese actually eat assumes was attractive for this or other reasons. Following the first adults came one string of youngsters, an intermediary pair of adults, more youngsters, and a following group of adults in rear-guard formation. The march was organized, but not brisk. To be honest, the children were rather slow, sometimes indecisive, and only stayed in line under the watchful eyes of their guardians, who made it clear that No Nonsense was being tolerated. Their fuzzy, immature feathering resembled soft fur, no doubt contributing to the looks of shameless "awwwwwww" on the faces of human onlookers. People in nearby vehicles smiled first at the geese, and then at each other, idling motors in the hot and muggy afternoon, and undoubtedly contributing to the already-poor quality of breathable air in Fairfield, Ohio. Nevertheless.
On this day, hundreds of strangers with no personal ties or selfish goals participated in a random response of Kindness to the Earth's offering of Senseless Wonder, and went on their busy ways slightly later, with a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. God is not yet quite dead.