A parable from priest and therapist Anthony de Mello on the stories we tell ourselves:
"A man found an eagle's egg and put it in a nest of a barnyard hen. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chickens and grew up with them.
All his life the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did, thinking he was a barnyard chicken. 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 old 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're chickens."
So the eagle lived and died a chicken, for that's what he thought he was."
Source: Song of the Bird -- Anthony de Mello
牧师兼治疗师安东尼·德梅洛- Anthony de Mello 的一个寓言《鸟之歌 Song of the Bird>讲述了我们告诉自己的故事:
“一个人发现了一个鹰蛋，把它放在了一个母鸡的窝里。小鹰和一窝小鸡一起孵出来，一起长大。
这只鹰一辈子都在做那些小鸡做的事，以为自己是一只小鸡。他挖土找虫子。他咯咯地笑。他会拍打翅膀，飞到几英尺高的空中。
许多年过去了，老鹰很老了。一天，他看见头顶上无云的天空中有一只美丽的鸟。它优雅威严地在强劲的风中滑行，几乎不拍打它那强壮的金色翅膀。
老鹰敬畏地抬起头来。“那是谁?”他问。
邻居说:“那是鹰，鸟中之王。”
“他属于天空。我们属于地球——我们是鸡。”
所以，鹰生是鸡，死是鸡，因为它自认为自己就是鸡。”
来源:鸟之歌 -- 安东尼·德梅洛
