We are halfway through our Emotionally Healthy Spirituality course.  It has been a great time of sharing in this journey of emotional health and contemplative spirituality.  I appreciate the work and effort of each person as they give themselves to the work of God’s Holy Spirit in their lives.  Even when its not easy.  One of the formative practices we are participating in is the  ancient practice of observing a Daily Office or “Fixed Hour Prayer.”  The “Office” is not so much our work but the work of God as we intentionally stop to be with Him twice a day.  We give ourselves to Him through slowing down, silence and  prayer and allow Him to speak to our hearts and reveal Himself to and through us.  The tool we are using is the daily devotional called Day By Day by Pete Scazzero.  The following is an excerpt from Week 2, Day 5 “Know Yourself That You May Know God”,  Midday/Evening Office.  In his book ‘The Song of the Bird’, Tony de Mello tells the following story:

     “A man found an eagle’s egg and put it in a nest of a barnyard hen.  The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them.

     All his life the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did, thinking he was a barnyard chick.  He scratched the earth for worms and insects, he clucked and cackled.  And he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet into the air.

     Years passed and the eagle grew very old.  One day he saw a magnificent bird above him in the cloudless sky.  It glided in graceful majesty among the powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings.  The eagle looked up in awe.  “Who’s that?” he asked.

     “That’s the eagle, the king of the birds,” said his neighbor.  “He belongs to the sky.  We belong to the earth…we are chickens.”

     So the eagle lived and died a chicken for that’s what he thought he was.”

When Jesus stood before Pontus Pilate he was asked about being a king.  Jesus responded: “My kingdom is not of this world.  If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders.  But now my kingdom is from another place.”    

     When we know who we are and whose we are we will live as people who live under a different authority, a different Ruler.  We have One to whom we pledge allegiance, One to whom we submit to, One to whom we worship.  As Christians, we live in this world but we are not ruled by this world.  Not by it’s passions, its values or its motivations.  We are ruled by Jesus  We are eagles living among chickens.  Let us not live like chickens but soar like the eagles we were created to be.