BREAKING THE SHELL

">I went to a vespers soup and service at the church Wednesday night before choir rehearsal... more of a fellowship discussion, than a real worship event.

I have been finding it all a little overwhelming, trying to think and talk about god and keep all the vocabulary and issues straight, and hearing all the names and ideas of people who've asked the same questions I am asking, and all the answers they have given throughout history.

In a way I had started to feel like, "why bother?" All my questions have been asked before, and answered before, more eloquently than I can ask or answer them.  It's kind of like reinventing the wheel.

But somebody was talking about chickens, and watching eggs hatch.

That got me thinking about chickens when I was supposed to be thinking about god.

How does a chick know it's time to hatch? Nobody comes along and tells it.  Nobody comes along and breaks the shell open for it.  The chick somehow knows it is time to break that shell and join the larger world, and the chick has to figure out how to do that itself, and has to actually start chipping away at that shell from the inside all by itself.  Each chick has to do it on its own.

I'm sure that egg is really spacious at first and comfortable.  But at a certain point it must begin to feel pretty confining.  The chick starts to wake up and sense that there is something outside the egg.  Something it can't directly see or feel or hear or smell... all filtered by the hard shell... but a place outside to join nonetheless.  And that shell must seem pretty smooth and strong and impenetrable at first... but somehow the chick persists and gets out.

So I guess that's me right now.  Yes,billions of chicks have hatched before me.... but I still have to crack my own shell open, if I want to live. No one is really going to come along and do it for me. So I will keep chipping away at it.

(Hah hah... the church is kind of like an incubator... a lot of eggs in a warm place, with a few chicks that hatched early cheeping really loudly... a lot of eggs sitting quietly... a few rocking around.... some cute fuzzy chicks and some really sad looking wet ones... and of course a few that won't hatch at all.... LOL.)