The town was located on the valley floor in the western Rockies surrounded by snow-capped mountains. The town looked like it was plucked from an old western movie. The Main Street was lined with wood storefronts, boardwalks, hitching posts, swinging-door saloons, cigar-store Indians, a blacksmith shop with a forge and, of course, like any authentic western town, Main Street was a dusty, unpaved thoroughfare.
Besides its old-west charm, there was something even more unique about the town. The only inhabitants of the town were geese—therefore the name, Goosetown. These were not your barnyard-variety geese. The geese of Goosetown were just like the people of any other community. They ran businesses, raised families and lived stable, productive lives.
Goosetown was a great place to live, except for when it rained. The rain and runoff from the mountains turned Main Street into one giant mud puddle. Every goose in town tracked it everywhere.
This was no small problem for the geese of Goosetown. Every town meeting turned into a lengthy discussion as to what to do about the mud. Each meeting would end with an approved plan of getting rid of the mud.
Every plan worked. The catch was that every time it rained, the mud was back. Rain, mud, meeting, plan, rid of the mud, rain again, mud again, meeting again, plan again, rid of the mud again—the cycle would repeat itself over and over. No one in Goosetown could remember life being any different.
One day the goose pastor was studying the Great Goose Book when he found two pages stuck together. He carefully pulled the pages apart and found some instructions that he’d never seen before. The subtitle of the text was, “A Description of How to Fly.”
The goose pastor was most interested. You see, none of the geese of Goosetown could fly. The instructions were simple—bend your knees, flap your wings and push off with your feet. The instructions were so simple that the goose pastor gave them a try. As quick as saying, “One, two, three,” the goose pastor was flying around his church study. With the room being too small for developing technique, the pastor perfected the art of flying outside. After soaring, banking and diving through the sky, the goose pastor returned to earth to catch his breath and rest his weary wings.
While thinking of the art of flying, it dawned on the goose pastor that flying was the perfect solution to the mud problem. The geese could just fly over the mud and never get their webbed feet wet. This thought excited the goose pastor so much that he had handbills nailed to every post on Main Street encouraging every goose in Goosetown to attend that Sunday to hear how the mud problem could be solved forever.
The goose pastor’s notices caused quite a stir in town and when Sunday arrived, everyone was in church. After the songs, announcements and offering, the goose pastor got up to the pulpit and began to share the “One, Two, Three” method of flying. Everyone caught on right away and began to whisper, ‘Great! Awesome! Wonderful! Amazing!” to one another. Because of the enthusiasm, the goose pastor even demonstrated the technique in church. All the geese were flabbergasted. Excitement increased. The pastor was so elated that he had everyone in church try, too. It was some sight to see a church full of geese, each flying above his place in the pew. By the time the last song was sung and the benediction was spoken, the excitement of the good news was on everyone’s lips as they exited the church. All they could think or talk about was the fascinating new knowledge of flight–as each goose walked home, picked up mud in the webbed feet and tracked it back into their homes.