I was reminded by a friend in here, who has been reading and studying a book by Anthony DeMello,, a spiritual writer, who has helped a lot of alcoholics. I had to think about one of his methods in helping others to grow along spiritual lines, and that was his gift of writing brief stories.
One of those stories was about a chicken farmer, who found an eagles egg. He brought it to his farm and put it into a chicken’s nest. One of the hens sat on it and hatched it. The little eagle came out and grew up with all the chicks in the farm. It learned from them how to continue to grow and become one of them. When the eagle was mature and being part of the chicken farm, it was out on the farm and eating corn kernels with the rest of the chickens, it stopped one day and looked up at the sky. Suddenly it was struck by seeing a large eagle flying overhead. It turned to a chicken next to it and asked what that bird was that was flying up there. The chicken said it was an eagle. The poor eagle shook its head and nodded and went on eating. Then it grew older and lived on to the end, living like all the chickens and never like an eagle.
I know what that story did for me and some others, who also read it. We were all alcoholics, spending our lives getting drunk and on the way to our deaths, when suddenly we were gifted with sobriety. We changed and got sober. And were able to continue to stay sober, not just working the Steps of this program,, but growing along spiritual lines. We were not staying on the ground with the hens, we were up there flying with the eagles. In other words we were not out there drinking with others like ourselves.
Anyway that’s my take, and that of others. We’re grateful to have been given this spiritual way of life, which allows us to surrender and continue to do our Higher Power’s will for us a day at a time.