"Dreams Eternal"

Since Easter eggs are everywhere today and since our story today was about an egg, I'm going to talk today a little about eggs and a little about Easter. There are many different ideas about eggs. Eggs are something to eat for breakfast, or add to cookie dough to keep it together, or to use to make custards. A long time ago we used to say about someone we liked that he was a "good egg". When we didn't like someone we called her a "rotten egg." When we fail at something sometimes we say we "laid an egg." And if we are going to be prudent about our investments, then we shouldn't "put all our eggs in one basket." A long, long time ago during the days of vaudeville and live political speaking engagements, if the audience didn't like the speakers or performers they'd throw things at them - like over-ripe tomatoes and rotten eggs - to show their disapproval.

We have a lot of creatures which lay eggs here in Florida. The two kinds of creatures which lay eggs are birds and reptiles. We have lots of birds. Some of them lay their eggs high up in trees, and some of them lay their eggs down low on the ground. The eggs we eat for breakfast come from chickens, a bird which doesn't fly very well, so it lays its eggs in a nest just a little bit off the ground. This makes it easy for us to find their eggs and gather them to eat.

We have numerous kinds of reptiles, including sea turtles and alligators. Both of these creatures lay eggs. The sea turtle comes up on the beach out of the ocean to lay her eggs in the soft dry sand. The alligator lays her eggs on the ground by a lake or pond.

Birds usually sit on their eggs after they lay them, to keep them warm. That's why Kack Kack needed someone to sit on her egg while she went off to admire the new ducklings her sister had hatched.

Reptiles don't usually stay with their eggs after they lay them. The earth or sand keeps the eggs warm enough to hatch. The babies don't have any grownup turtles or alligators to protect them when they're first hatched. That's why we keep cars off the beaches where the sea turtles lay their eggs - so the babies can crawl from the soft sand to the ocean after they hatch, without being run over.

There are three things I'd like you to notice today about eggs. First, they are a symbol of community and new life. Even though it is the mother bird or the mother reptile which lays the eggs, it takes both a mother and a father to create an egg which will hatch into a baby. Father birds often bring food to the mother birds while they are sitting on their eggs, and then help feed the baby birds when they are hatched. A couple of weeks ago I went on a boat tour of the lakes around Cypress Gardens, and we saw more than twenty osprey nests with baby birds in them and several of them with both mother and father ospreys feeding their babies.

The reality that it takes both a male and a female to create an egg which will become new life gives us another idea about eggs. Just as giving and receiving are part of the process of creating eggs which become new life, giving and receiving are part of the process of creating community. We give and receive love. We give and receive ideas. We give and receive help. Our giving and receiving connect us in many, many ways, and the sum of all those connections creates community.

The second thing I'd like you to notice about eggs today is that eggs break easily. They are fragile. Bently had to be very, very careful to protect the egg Kack Kack had entrusted to him. Eggs are fragile. If you drop an egg it will break. Over at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University a couple of weeks ago there was a contest to see who could drop an egg without breaking it. The girl who won had wrapped her egg in a giant wad of protective material, just like you wrap something breakable you're going to mail in several layers of bubble wrap and foam peanuts to protect it.

The third thing I'd like you to notice about eggs is that eggs must break if there is to be new life. Do you remember how, in the story, Bently had to rescue the egg from a boy who found it in the garden, and then had to rescue the egg from the table where the boy had left it, and then had to rescue the egg from the top of the lady's hat when he and the egg dropped onto it from the balloon, and then had to rescue the egg from the boy again when he was sailing away from the garden party? Well, when Bently was all finished rescuing, he collapsed on the shore and fell into a deep, exhausted sleep. After a long time Bently woke up, and he was startled to discover the egg was broken, covered with a dozen tiny cracks. He was even more startled when a newborn duckling emerged from the egg.

Just as you and I must break the shells of eggs if we are to eat them and be nourished by the food that is inside, so a duckling, or a baby osprey, or a baby turtle, or a baby alligator must break its egg if it is to be born.

We human beings are born through a different process. Yet, if we are to become mature, grown up people we must also break. When we are children we are innocent. As we grow, we lose our innocence. Each sad thing, each loss we have, each disappointment we endure is like a crack in the shell of our innocence. These cracks occur naturally, as we grow older. But just as a baby chick has to peck its way out of its shell, so too we humans must break our way out of our innocence if we are to be truly adult. We break our way out by taking responsibility for ourselves and by coming to terms with life as it is - losses and all.

As parents, we want to protect our children, just as osprey protect their young. Yet if the osprey is to fly, if the human is to become adult, it must break out of its shell of innocence. That's the hardest part of being a parent - watching sad things happen to our offspring, seeing them experience loss, observing their pain of disappointment - knowing that not only can we not protect our children from all of these hard parts of life, but also that it is the hard parts, the times that break the shells of innocence which allow our children to mature and grow.

A long, long time ago a mother named Mary watched her son named Jesus be executed. Jesus was executed not because he was bad, but because he was good. His goodness threatened the people who were in control in his country. After he died, Joseph of Arimathea arranged for Jesus' body to be carried to a tomb. It was like a cave, carved out of stone, with a big rock in front of it, like a door. Three days after his death, Mary and two other women came to the place where Jesus was buried. They discovered that the rock in front of the cave had been moved and that Jesus' body was gone. The traditional Christian explanation is that Jesus was resurrected - that is, that he came back to life - and then ascended, or rose up to heaven to be with God. Many people believe this story is true. Many people believe it is a symbolic story or a myth.

What we do know is that the empty tomb is like an empty shell. Jesus died for principles. He said the most important thing in life is caring about others, loving them as we love ourselves. In order for his ideas to be born, Jesus had to leave his shell, his tomb. What Jesus taught is the most important thing to many of us here today, not how his body left the tomb, if indeed it did.

The story of Jesus is important to us. So are the stories of Bently and the egg which became Little Ben and osprey eggs and turtle eggs. Out of community, out of giving and receiving, life is born.

An egg is just one symbol of life. Another symbol is a flower. Flowers come from seeds, which, like eggs, must break apart if they are to grow into flowers.

Today we celebrate Easter. We also celebrate the life of Norbert Capek, a Unitarian Czech and Slovak who originated the idea of flower communion in 1923. Reverend Capek knew about suffering. He was captured by the Nazis and put in a concentration camp during World War II. He died in 1942.

Our flower communion reminds us that it takes giving and receiving to create and sustain community. Each of us has brought a flower today. Each of us will go home with a different flower than the one we brought. Our gifts, given and received, symbolize the creative interchange which binds us as a religious community, dedicated to life in all its diversity.

Let us sing together of Life which makes all things new. Please open your hymnals to #12 - For the Beauty of the Earth.