Story for all ages: Stones, Eggs and Hearts

I wrote this story when I first entered seminary.  I was ordained June 9th and commenced June 11th at Riverside Church in New York City. This story is dedicated to  One Spirit Interfaith Seminary class of 2011.  It is designed to be told, with love and thanks,

rev. lizzie

My words may feel comfortable when you first hear them,

as smooth round stones

My words may grate on you like pebbles in your shoes –

or just sand in your shorts…..

For today am a weaver of tall tales and a spinner of a magic web of words

for today am a story teller

and this is a story for all ages.

A long long time ago – yesterday, or was it tomorrow, a group of wizards decided to turn everyone’s heart to stone. They had heard in the past that people had had hearts of stone and thought that they had historic precedent. Now they did not do this lightly they gave it much thought and they felt that it was the best way to protect the people forever– for the people were truly golden, they were truly stardust Shimmering and glowing –

So the wizards decided that they would turn the peoples hearts to stone. Having done so they then would collect the stones and put them into the top of a very sturdy and secure tower for safe keeping. and so they did…

And the wizards felt quite pleased with their solution, because not only did it keep all the shimmer and glow safe…once they had implemented the Sacred Stone Protection Accord things became a lot more predictable, and controlled…….

this gave the wizards quite a lot of thinking time, not observing or experiencing time mind you, after all they were surrounded by stones in a stone tower. But thinking time rapidly became worrying time….and worrying time…well it can be very dangerous.

The set about worrying. Worrying about the best way to keep the stone hearts safe and secure and as time went on. well more stone hearts came to the tower for safe keeping, every day more stone hearts arrived…and the worrying got worse.

“Yeah look at this” …called out a newly initiated Wizard, “did you notice that not all the stones are the same,”

He was about to say each one is unique when –the senior wizard jumped in,

“We know that – some are clearly better than others ah!! “

and then a third said,”ah ha!”

and so they started sorting the stones – ok, so none of them really matched at all, now there was some discussion, conferencing, talking about which was more perfect: large or small…so in the end they split into factions those that thought the small was the best and those that thought the large was the best, …the sizes in the middle, well they simply got tossed. those that were smooth were the best, those that were round …

and of course as each Wizard got better and better at seeing which was the best stones…round and smooth, Large and angular so the numbers of stones getting tossed grew. greater and greater till they had a storage problem again!

The apprentice in charge of waste management came to the wizards counting and conference room one day and said,

“Wizards,we have no more room in our storage spaces for these tossed rocks “ ( because by this time they had forgot all about the truth that these were shimmering shining hearts…)

“Oh…” said one of the senior Wizards offhandedly,

“I don’t bother us with that, just take them down to the sea or something… “

So she did. And then she sat down. Hauling rocks is very exhausting work, even for an apprentice wizard.

As she sat there a little boy came over and sat down beside her. And they sat there for a while and stared the sea and the rocks, and then the boy went over and picked one of the rocks up, and turned it over in his hand….

“I like this one .” he said, and as he said that –the rock turned into an egg.

“AH, an egg.” he said..and he held it gently and close to him…and as often happens with eggs, it hatched, into a bird – a beautiful shimmering glowing bird. and that bird flew right into the place where the child’s heart had been and he started to glow…and shimmer and shine….wow!

And then the apprentice picked up a stone that she liked and as she held it gently it turned into an egg and hatched into a bird and it flew into the ache of an old woman who was gathering seaweed for her evening meal and the old woman began to glow an shimmer and shine…

and soon the beach was filled with people picking up rocks and cradling them as they turned into eggs and then birds and sometimes after someone had been picking up lots of rocks they would pick one up and it would turn out to be their very own egg, their very own bird their very own heart and all would cheer!

and the shore was bright and shimmering and glowing again…and as for the apprentice, well, she is still looking for her stone, egg, bird, heart..

but the funny thing is when she is looking for her own heart the hardest, is when the stones stay eggs in hands, never hatching………but she’s still learning….

 

 

 

 

 

 

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