This one is dedicated to my darling friend down the road who made me imagine eggs cracking open in the first place. It was her birthday and all I could think about were exquisite, speckled eggs in a meadow, nestled here and there in amongst tufts of feathery grasses. I even painted those eggs on her birthday card. The end product looked more like an Easter egg hunt was about to begin, than the quaint, old-world nature study I was after; but it wasn’t supposed to be about the eggs so much as it was in their breaking, anyway. In the destruction of the container, the treasure is released. And that’s how my friend lives – check inside that tin, dig in the fridge, slice the cheese, tear the bread apart and let the people eat! Tidy the house, burn the candles, cut the roses to fill the vases, make it just right and then fling open the doors so that those same people and their children with dirty feet can arrive and mess it all up again. She is not afraid of disorder and happily pays that price for what cannot be bought: a house full of laughter and meaningful conversation, dancing wild on the lawn and singing around the piano.
A smooth, blue, faultless, freckled, intact shell will never be able to compete with the intricate life within, just waiting to come out at the proper time. Perfect elliptical shapes in faultlessly woven nests are not meant to stay like that for always. They are the vessels of life. They contain the mystery. The perfection is supposed to be ruined and pieces of shell kicked aside as new life breathes in its place. Sometimes I just want that tidy nest with five little eggs quiet, still and pretty as a picture, but it’s in the breaking that life perpetuates. It’s when the silence is replaced with cheeping, squawking and birdsong that the meaning of it all unfolds and the day begins to really count. We needn’t grieve that the shell is ruined, we can rejoice that what was once hidden is now revealed in all it’s glory!
I began writing about these eggs breaking open, thinking that it was all going to be about birth and new life. Scribbled notes lay scattered on my desk as something unusual happened outside. Twenty-one eggs were, deliberately, cracked open under the roof of our outdoor seating area. I know that exactly twenty-one eggs had been smashed out there because moments before I had placed a tray of thirty eggs on the counter and when I checked again there were just the nine, lonely eggs rattling around in a mostly empty tray. The baby was swimming in egg in what was, no doubt, the sensory experience of his lifetime. The culprit was darting about happily with egg down the front and back of her dress; her face telling me she might be quite prepared to say, “It wasn’t me.” I noticed a pool of slime in the tyre swing and asked her what she’d cracked the eggs into to which she replied, matter-of-factly, “Quarters. “The dog was madly lapping up whatever the baby wasn’t lying in, tail wagging and body quivering. I had been writing about broken shells, and new life but this was just a whole lot of mess and wasted food. In my opinion. Yet, perhaps, in some instances it’s the life growing within that breaks open the shell and sometimes it’s simply a breaking of the shell to unleash some living! Perhaps we need to be more intentional about it, more childlike. I would never have done that – I keep things clean and tidy, am careful not to waste and I behave! This little wild heart saw an opportunity that was too good to miss and she cracked our food into quarters into the swing and all over the floor before anyone could say to her, “What on earth are you thinking!?”
Just maybe it’s time to crack open the tin of maple syrup from Canada sitting on the top shelf in the pantry and also the piggy bank that’s filling up for a rainy day. Maybe it’s time to let the clothes in my cupboard, that I never wear, come bursting out into a bag for someone who has no cupboard, not even an empty one. Maybe it’s time to interrupt my routine for the sake of another or dig up the earth to plant a tree. What if I could break bad habits and dark generational lines? Is there a chocolate somewhere that we can chop into pieces and share or shall we rip the peel off an orange, tear the segments apart and pop into our mouths each juice-filled capsule? Is there a wall around my heart or between you and me that needs to be demolished like the one in Berlin? What might I rend today that will mend tomorrow?
Once, I helped a little lamb out of it’s labouring, utterly-spent mother. Water, ragged bits of the bag, streaks of blood and a placenta came out of that secret place along with absolute perfection fully alive. There was nothing tidy about it. If my heart had not been racing with the wonder and miracle of new life, it would surely have been racing with terror and disgust. If my hands had not been touched with the sacred fluids of life, I would have been holding them away from me as I ran to find a tap. I didn’t say a word but I prayed as I knelt in the mud that the holy water and dust had created. Instinctively in position to catch life and thank the Life-Giver, simultaneously. “Wipe it’s face” the farmer said, and as I did mother and babe reached for one another.
My own birth experiences have been a combination of excruciation and exhilaration. It’s as if there can only be one because there is the other. Just because things are messy or out of control; just because you want to give up; just because you are in pain and feel as though you may break; just because there is pressure and discomfort; just because there is blood and sweat and tears, it doesn’t mean that life is ending or that something is wrong. There is no need to forecast death and destruction. Those are the very clues that signal new life is imminent! Hold steady, breathe, stop clenching those jaws. Smile, rest in between, close your eyes and imagine. Something new is on the way – trust! When seeds have been sown, harvest is inevitable. There may be waiting, toil and pain but in it all, let’s be the midwives heralding “It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, a miracle is on the way!”
It’s becoming apparent that in order for the next level of life to be achieved, something has to break. The shell cracks and the chick emerges. The sterile bag tears and where, once, the womb was empty, a gush of liquid and a tiny lamb come blinking and bleating into the world. Where there was once a sealed, swollen belly racked with contractions there now lies sparkling new life, cradled in arms, faces transfixed on one another. It’s in the collapse of control, pride, independence and selfishness that relationships are taken to greater levels of trust and bonds are strengthened. Finally, at the end of one’s days, a heart beats for the last time. The body fails. We mourn and grieve and yet the cold, broken shell of our loved one is the very cracking open of mortal life to set free the victorious, magnificent, triumphant immortality within. The ageless spirit receives a new and glorious body and life eternal. What appears to be the final death is actually the commencement of life in ever greater fullness.
In Ecclesiastes, we read that there is a time for everything under the sun, but have you noticed that sometimes it’s possible to laugh whilst crying? In confirmation, the Psalmist says that we can feast in the presence of our enemies. I think of those wartime parties, the red lipstick and high heels even as sirens were going off. It makes me wonder if we spend too much time waiting for the time to be just right instead of obeying, responding or risking right here, right now. It seems to me that perhaps the laughter, eating and dancing would be even sweeter in the midst of the tears and war. Necessary even. Could it be that it’s time? Like that little girl took the opportunity to do what many of us would never dream of doing, we can break open as well as be broken open. It’s worth it! It won’t be the end. It will be the beginning.
Micah 2 verse 13
The One who breaks open the way will go up before them; they will break through the gate and go out. Their King will pass through before them, the Lord at their head.
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