Thanks to Bank of Ideas for this week's story. It just had to be told as part of my theme of finding people's strengths:
A man found an eagle’s egg and placed it under a brooding hen. The eaglet hatched with the chickens and grew to be like them. He clucked and cackled, scratched the earth for worms, flapped his wings and managed to fly a few feet in the air.
Years passed. One day the eagle, now grown old saw a magnificent bird above him in the sky; it glided in a graceful majesty against the powerful wind, with scarcely a movement of its golden wings.
Spellbound the eagle asked – “Who’s that?”
“That’s the king of the birds, the eagle,” said his neighbour. “He belongs to the sky. We belong to earth – we’re chickens.”
So the eagle lived and died a chicken for that’s what he thought he was.
(Anthony de Mello)
I well remember the concept of putting partridge and pheasant eggs under a chicken when growing up on the farm. My mother shared that the chickens were better mothers to the wild game birds than their own parents who could abandon their nest when disturbed. In training and development, my area it can take time to incubate person centredness through our teachings and enjoy being the chickens rather thne go for the quick fixes and abandon others to their fate.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great illustration. Thanks Arlene
ReplyDeletereminds me of the saying "its hard to soar like an eagle when surrounded by turkey's"
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