"Celestial Parentage,"
from Becoming a Celestial Person
in a Telestial World
by Allan K. Burgess 

The  story has been  told about a  salesman who went
to an isolated valley on a sales trip. He was planning on
spending  several days there but  found there were no hotels or
rooming houses where he could  stay. He  looked around until
he found the finest-looking house in the valley, knocked on
the door, and asked the rancher if he [the salesman] could
stay the night. The hospitable rancher invited him to come
in and make himself at home. The two men had such an
enjoyable evening together that the salesman decided to get
up early and help his new friend with the chores.

As the salesman was feeding the chickens, much to his
surprise he saw an eagle among them. He yelled excitedly to
the rancher to warn him about the eagle, but the rancher
didn’t  seem at all concerned and  told him not  to worry about
it. The salesman tried again to warn the rancher and told
him how dangerous an eagle could be among chickens, but
the rancher was still unconcerned.

Finally the rancher said,
“Let me tell you a story and then you will understand.”

The year before,  the rancher had  found an eagle’s nest on
a cliff high up in the mountains. In the nest he had found
three eggs. He had taken two of the eggs back to his ranch
and put them under a brooding hen. One of the eggs had
hatched, and that is how the eagle had gotten there. The
eagle thought the hen was his mother and the other chickens
were his brothers and sisters. He did not realize he was an
eagle but instead thought he was a chicken.

When  the  salesman  looked  into  the  farmyard again,
sure enough there was the eagle scratching around in the
dirt looking for something to eat along with the chickens.
The  salesman had always  liked a  challenge, and he
asked the rancher if he [the rancher] would mind his [the
salesman’s] performing an experiment with the eagle. Since
the eagle couldn’t lay eggs, the rancher indicated that he
didn’t mind at all.

The salesman walked over to the eagle, picked it up in
his hands and said, “You’re an eagle. Take to your wings
and fly.” The eagle just blinked at him with his big yellow
eyes, ruffled up his feathers, and looked him up an down
before hopping down to the ground and starting to scratch
for  grains  of  corn  in  the  dirt  again. The  rancher  just
laughed and said, “See, I told you he was just a chicken.”
The salesman shook his head.

“It just isn’t right,” he said,
and he went out to sell his product.

He  spent another pleasant evening with  the rancher and
again fed the chickens the next morning. Once again he
picked up the eagle and told him[the eagle] who and what
he [the eagle] was, but the bird still didn’t seem to believe
him  [the  salesman].  Instead  of  flying,  the  eagle  hopped
down and started scratching in the dirt again.

On  the  third day  the  salesman went out very early  in  the
morning  just as the  sun was coming up over the mountains.
He reached down, lifted up the eagle, and turned him [the
eagle] so that he [the eagle] was facing the sun. Then he
said again, “You are a golden eagle, take to your wings and
fly!” Once again the eagle  just  looked at him [the  salesman]
and blinked, but as he did so the  sun  shone  in his  [the  eagle’s] eyes.

The eagle raised his head and looked up at the
light. All of a sudden he began to tremble; then he spread
his great wings and off he flew. He never scratched in the
dirt with the chickens again. He was no longer a chicken
but a golden eagle, the king of the birds. When he started
looking up instead of down, he finally realized who and
what he was.

Theodore M. Burton, in Conference
Report, April 1962, pp. 55-57.


(Led by the SPIRIT, Randy Faulk,
XLibris, 2010, pp. 18-20.)