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(Written Sept. 15, 2022)
There is a well-known story that is used to encourage people to live up to their full potential, about an eagle egg placed in the hen’s nest. Supposedly, it grew along with the others that hatched from the eggs and lived and died as a chicken too. I tweaked the story to have the fellow claiming his regal identity to relate another truth.
The bird was concerned to learn all he could about the proper strut, the best way to find grains on the hardened ground, how to spot them and how to distinguish the good grain from the bad, how to encourage possessors of feed to deposit more into feeding utensils so you got the most benefit out of each feeding session.
Experienced chickens taught much about how it was important to ingest much to increase personal circumference but not get too large so as to make it difficult to locomote. At the same time, they taught the importance of balance: one had to keep exercise to a minimum, because tough meat would not make good delicacy, and wasn't that, after all, the goal of all chickens, to become the tastiest dish?
But one day while out “strutting,” he saw a bird flying in the sky.
This
bird wore a quizzical expression, came down to the roof of the barn near the
chicken and seemed to stare hard at him.
“That’s
not nice,” the chicken said. “Why are you staring at me like that?”
“B-but,” the other bird said, then broke into
a smile (an eagle “smile”). “Really now. You’re not a chicken. You’re one of
us. You’re an eagle! Come fly with us!”
Nothing
doing. Was he joking? The chicken stood his ground, literally. Maybe he was
brown, maybe he was bigger, naturally stronger than the others, and sounded a
little different, but…an eagle? Ridiculous!
The
next day, that bird came back. And the next. And the next. After a while, the
chicken started to get tired of the pesky visitor. So the following day, when
he saw him coming…
He cut
him off just before he got to the rooftop eaves, showing him an angry
expression. Surely, he would understand he wasn’t welcome and hopefully stop
these irritating visits. But instead, the other bird surprised him with a big
smile.
“You
must be an eagle!” he said almost gleefully. “A chicken couldn’t fly up this
high.
What?
The chicken thought. But he smiled and seemed pleased. Actually, from when he
was little, he wanted to fly. But chickens were taught they were birds of the
earth and had no need for flying.
“Since
you’re up here already, just come and join us!”
That
brown bird found himself soaring high, high, high, circling and swooping,
feeling rushing wind; seeing lights and color flashing by. Even sounds and
smells seemed to come stunningly alive. The great bird could see the full
possibility he himself possessed—he could look back at the farm he had left,
and although they were flying far above it, he could see a little mouse on the
ground! And it wasn’t just powerful sight: the brown chicken realized his
muscles rippled with power to enable him to change direction in mid-air if he
wanted and head down to that mouse!
He
caught the eye of the other bird who said simply, “Do it. You can get him.”
That
chicken found himself making a U-turn in the sky and dive-bombing toward the
mouse, who, seeing the dark shadow descending from the sky started to scamper
away, but it was too late. Sharp talons grasped the rodent.
What a
thrill! But this felt…so natural! And so much better than pecking around for
seeds, thought the brown…
“Because
you’re not a CHICKEN,” the companion bird uttered. He seemed to wink and looked
approvingly at the snare of the mouse. “You’re an EAGLE.”
“Good
catch, Buddy.”
“And
Welcome home.”
Home?
His eagle friend let him know the eagle flies all over the sky so calls heaven
his home. All that knowledge about detecting seeds, about being the best chicken
possible, about keeping meat soft to be deliciously edible…well, now he wanted
to start filling his mind and heart with heavenly things, the brown bird decided.
With a
final look at his former habitat and a few bats of his wings, he turned to the
peaks and was gone.
