Hatch

"It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad." - C.S. Lewis

Each of us is on a journey. For some of us it is a thirty year journey, for others it will be a seventy or eighty-two year journey. There are some kids, right now, at Children's Hospital, who are only on a ten year journey. I have no idea why the journey is so short or so long. I only know that it is. 

We all know that what we make of the journey is entirely up to us but, well, that's a scary thought. There's accountability in that thought, and responsibility, and a whole host of other "not so fun" concepts to that reality. So we play the victim...or the villain...or the hero.  Stuff has happened to us all and guess what? More stuff will happen to us in the future. Some of it will be good and some of it will be bad but, guess what? That's how it's been your entire life. You're used to it by now.

To find peace, real peace, for any prolonged period of time, we must maintain a steady and genuine state of existence. What's that mean? Just fancy talk for "hold the line" and "stay real". If you think about it, we are either thinking too much about ourselves or thinking too much of ourselves. In the process, we begin to play dress up to the world. At work we assume one identity, at home another. Is it any wonder we wake up one day and discover that we don't know who we are anymore? Or are pained that no one else really does either? Our avoidance of the "not so fun" stuff only leads to one neurosis or another, or a dozen or more. In short, we begin to spoil.

I love the above quote by Clive Staples Lewis. Let's just call him "Clive", shall we? Ya know...Clive's got it down. When you see yourself as an egg, all hard shelled and stamped with an expiration date, you suddenly realize the importance of hatching...of breathing fresh air...of taking flight. After all, God didn't create you to stagnate and go bad in this life. 

He created you to soar.