An Egg Salad Sandwich

‘Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.’ - Senator Robert F. Kennedy

Egg sandwiches came up in casual conversation the other day, especially what a pain it was when the shell refused to peel off easily. We all loved them but hated the thought of struggling with removing the shells. If only there was a way the ensure an easy removal! As we were bemoaning this fact, one of the group spoke up, “Why are you trying to peel the shell off? The easy thing to do is to simply cut the hard boiled egg in half and remove the insides with a spoon.” We all looked at her with varying degrees of surprise and suspicion.

However shortly thereafter I was confronted with just the kind of hard boiled egg we had been talking about and in desperation decided to try her method, It worked brilliantly, proving once again the saying that ‘change is inevitable except from a vending machine’. I found myself wondering why in over half a century of making egg salad sandwiches I had never once thought of doing it!

As a result of this experience I found myself asking a couple of questions: Why had there been that hint of suspicion when the idea was first presented? WHY had I never thought of it before? It wasn’t rocket science after all! Nor did it impact in any way on the resulting egg sandwiches. It just made the process easier! Why the hint of suspicion instead of admitting straightaway that it was a good idea? Did I not want to admit that somebody else could have an better idea? Was that because I had always struggled with peeling of the shells, as had my mother, and her mother before her? Was this really just another of times in the church when a new idea is brought up only to be crushed by someone saying “That’s not how we always do it’.

And so the egg shells led me to the church and memories of board meetings. But more importantly they have led me to realize just how easy it is to not even consider at a new idea simply because it isn’t how you have always done it. And how silly it all seems in retrospect!!!!

“Be alert, be present. I'm about to do something brand-new. It's bursting out! Don't you see it? There it is! I'm making a road through the desert, rivers in the badlands.” Isaiah 43:19 MSG

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