"Once upon a time, an eagle’s egg was found by a farmer and mistaken
for a chicken egg. The egg was placed with the other eggs in the incubator at
the hen house.
Some weeks later that egg hatched. The baby eagle was raised as a chicken
with the other chicks. Along with his chicken peers, he was taught to peck and
scratch. He was made to scurry along the ground like the other chickens. He was
sternly warned against flying, because chickens don’t really fly, they flutter
and fall.
This eagle made a miserable chicken. He didn’t peck well. He hated
scurrying because he was always feeling clumsy and falling. He was constantly
hungry and irritable, because the chicken feed just couldn’t seem to satisfy
him. The other chickens found him disruptive and odd.
After years of struggling to be a normal chicken, this poor eagle’s self
esteem was pretty low. He hated himself. “Why am I so big, awkward and
different?” he often wondered, “Why can’t I be happy like all the other
chickens here?”
“Is this all there is to life?” he agonized, “Where’s the thrill? Where’s
the flow?”
He began to do more and more disruptive things just to get a little hit of
excitement. He was starved for action and adventure – he desperately craved in
his heart that feeling of soaring – only he didn’t even know what that was – so
he tried to compensate by making his own thrills around the chicken coop,
causing drama and disturbances. Other chickens called him selfish, disordered
and a troublemaker. The poor eagle took it all to heart, believed them and
became depressed.
One day, high overhead the young eagle saw another eagle soaring in the
sky. It took his breath away. For a moment he felt a surge of recognition. He
felt something inside him stir. He felt more alive than he had ever felt
before.
In his excitement he told his family of chickens what he saw and how he
wanted to fly like that too. They scoffed at him. “Are you nuts?!” “You’re
dreaming.” “Get real. Chickens don’t fly.” “You are being totally impractical.”
“You can’t even cluck and scratch – and now you think you can fly someday!?”
the chickens chided. “When will you grow up and join the pecking order of this
chicken coop. Why can’t you be more like your peers? What’s wrong with you?!”
The young eagle was shamed and disheartened. He felt hopeless and alone as
he fell to sleep at night.
Days later, to his delight, he spotted the soaring bird and this time it
let out the cry of an eagle. The moment the young eagle raised by chickens
heard this cry something unexpected happened. His body lurched uncontrollably –
his entire being responded automatically to that eagle’s majestic cry with a
powerful eagle cry of his own. He was astonished. “What just happened?!… Did
that glorious sound come from me? Chickens don’t make that sound! Only eagles
do… Wait… Only eagles do!”
The young eagle, finally aware of what he truly was, for the first time
stretched out his wings and flew. Before he knew it he was soaring. He was no
longer imprisoned by the chicken coop, because he was no longer imprisoned by
the idea that he had to be a chicken. Nothing could contain him anymore.
There's a heart response inside that cannot, that WILL not be denied!
A chicken coop can only coop up chickens; it cannot stop an eagle from
soaring – especially once they hear their call."
“Face the reality.... where the future is not faithless.”
