Are you an eagle?

Just started reading this new book "Awareness" by Anthony de Mello (Thank you for the suggestion Cory) and the first story had such an impact I had to share it.

"A man found an eagle’s egg and put it in a nest of a barnyard hen. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them. All his life the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did, thinking he was a barnyard chicken. He scratched the earth for worms and insects. He clucked and cackled. And he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet into the air. Years passed and the eagle grew very old. One day he saw a magnificent bird above him in the cloudless sky. It glided in graceful majesty among the powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings. The old eagle looked up in awe. “Who’s that?” he asked. “That’s the eagle, the king of the birds,” said his neighbor. “ He belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth— we’re chickens.” So the eagle lived and died a chicken, for that’s what he thought he was."

Wow what perspective!  How much of our lives do we live trying to be what others expect us to be or what we think others expect us to be?  I believe God created us to be eagles and our own fears, worries, "shoulds", comparisons and insecurities turn us into chickens.

Go be the eagle God made you to be.  It is actually quite silly not to.  Wow - hit me smack between the eyes!

Patricia