My hen sits for long hours upon her nest and I marvel at her patience. Her persistence in her task remains despite the approach of my hands doing various sundry tasks in the cage. On any other day, and by that I mean any day without a nest full of four beautiful oblong blue eggs, the hen would have flapped fluttered and fussed at my intrusion. Now, however, she is on a mission to incubate.
I read an interesting fact today. As long as the female canary is sitting on the eggs the eggs will continue to develop. When she gets off her nest to exercise and eat the eggs cease developing until she returns. (I know some pregnant mothers who wouldn’t mind being able to push pause on their babies development so they might get a moments relief from the nausea of morning sickness or the relentless kicking of their bladder at the most inopportune moment.) Of course if the hen were to leave her eggs unwarmed too long they could die.
What I find as particularly delightful about this entire phenomena is how it mirrors our own spiritual life. We must tend it regularly and wait patiently. We must endure the scary moments when we feel threatened. If we stop tending our spiritual life it will stop developing, and if we leave it long enough it may even die. When we persevere… well… perhaps the metaphor begins to break down but I think it is safe to say good “things” happen when we persevere.
Lent is upon us next week. Time to think about what lenten observence we hope to persevere in this year?
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4 comments:
Still 'brooding' on that one, Ladybird - but it (my Lenten observance) will probably have to do with tending to that which I've let grow cold. Thanks for the beautiful metaphor!
and then, when we've incubated our spiritual life long enough, it (and by 'it,' I mean 'we') flies off to Heaven.
I love your blog name, you sweet, sweet ladybird.
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