I think people are a lot like chicken eggs.  But before I get into that… Let me say this.

And…. I know.   I’ve said it before.  I love chicken eggs.  In fact, I eat 2 to 3 every morning for breakfast.   I bet there a lot of mother chickens who would wring my neck about now.

But I’m not the only one who likes eggs.   They seem to be pretty popular the whole world around.  In fact, when we were in Amsterdam, they fixed a LOT of dishes with fried eggs right in them.  They would put fried eggs on any old sandwich.

And wouldn’t you know.  This whole egg-craze thing isn’t so new.   People have been eating eggs since there first started to be people, about six million years ago.

Here’s the thing…..  why early humans liked to get them.  Eggs don’t fight back – you can pick up a dozen just by climbing to where the nest is and picking them up.  Go Thor go.

Folks started wising up about the whole egg deal in years that followed.   By about 7000 BC, people in China and India were keeping chickens and eating their eggs, so they didn’t have to go hunting for wild bird eggs anymore.

The earliest way was to eat eggs was raw… but then sticks were rubbed together, and by golly…. we got fire.   And, once people began to use fire, about a million years ago, they often roasted eggs in the coals. I might try this at the next campfire.   It seems like the shells would break… not like the big old Teradactyl Eggs of yesteryear.

With the invention of pottery, about 5000 BC, boiling eggs gradually became more common.  Then people really started cooking with Crisco.  Eggs started showing up in all different cooked forms… And  also in breads, cakes, and custards.

And there you have it.   The incredible, edible egg.

Now how is that like people…?  Well.  If you taste the shell of the egg… It is really not that great.  Even once you figure out how to crack the thing open and find something very different on the inside… In its raw form… The egg still doesn’t taste that great.

But give it a little attention… A little effort… You know… A couple tablespoons of butter and some heat… The egg becomes a thing of culinary beauty.  A delight.  A joy.  A treat.

And so it goes with people.  Maybe someone we know.  Maybe ourselves.  What is on the inside may need a little coaxing before the true treasure can come alive.

And that is exactly, without exaggeration…an exemplification of our likeness.. To eggs.

Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.  —      Oscar Wilde
   
The greatest treasures are those invisible to the eye but found by the heart. —  Maryanne Williamson