The Eagle who became hen
Parables and Illustrations for Values Education |
Leonardo Boff tells a story, which is not a fable, but reality, he heard when he was in Germany: A farmer grabbed an Eagle chick and raised it in the House with his hens. Eagle grew up as a hen, acted as hen, all looked like a chicken.
One day, he visited the farmer a naturalist who had specialized in customs and habits of the Eagles. When he saw the Eagle turned into chicken, it told the peasant:
-What does the Eagle that was born to fly at heights and stand tall as mountains, pecking the ground and digging the garbage as a vulgar hen?
-It is no longer Eagle and doesn't fly - replied the peasant - I grew up it like chicken and it turned into a chicken.
The naturalist looked peer to the peasant and said passionately:
-Do not fly now, but she has within the chest and eyes in the direction of the Sun and the call of the heights. You'll see how she is able to fly.
One morning, they left very early heading to mountain. When they arrived at the Summit, the Sun was born. The naturalist seized the Eagle with firmness, his eyes to the Sun, and threw it to the top. Eagle turned into chicken felt the exciting call from the heights, awakened in his heart his being Eagle, stirred the wings first with some hesitation, then ever more firmly, and it was lost on a flight full and increasingly more confident on the infinite blue of the sky.
Within each of us lives an eagle. Education, media, culture and the environment were proposed to deny us our vocation of height and become a simple chickens that we walk pecking wastes. Let's assume an education that release the Eagle we all have inside. We don't try to as simple students hens, capable only of crawling flights. Let's look at the Eagle who is each one of them and help the flight of their freedom. To do this, we need educators have found the call of the heights, the vocation of Summit. There is another version of this same story that we must avoid: turns out, converted into a hen, Eagle became old and one day glimpsed far above it, in the blue sky, an extraordinary bird flying sovereign in the heights, effortlessly, with a gentle motion of his wings. The old Eagle turned into chicken looked amazed up and asked a colleague who was this amazing animal. "It is an eagle, the King of the birds", replied the hen. "But you don't think about it. You and I are different, are born chickens, can not fly".
The Eagle did not think of it and died believing that it was a vulgar hen.