Is there a lamb and a tiger inside us?

Is there any commandment, written on the sky or a stone tablet, denying us our perfect right to be both tiger and lamb?

 The tiger, beast made of fire and night, shows its teeth when it blazes with love.

  The lamb, orphan wrapped in soft blanket of cloud, weeps to receive that same love.

So we give and take, are strong and weak, guilty and innocent, wrong and right.

 So we are balanced, even when we seem to be in conflict.

When we learn to accept all the things we can be, we will be able to love all the ways the world outside us can be.

     
A robin comes alive by breaking out of its shell.

The small bird struggles to break out of the safety of the blue egg.

Once out, it struggles to grow, slowly learning how to eat, walk, and fly.

We, too, struggle as we grow.

 There is brokenness in all of our lives -- broken hearts and broken dreams.

 Yet these experiences open our way to a world of growing.

We find comfort in the presence of a Power greater than ourselves, in the same way a baby bird finds warmth near the body of its mother.

We, too, can grow stronger every day, learning to take in nourishment and trying out our new wings.