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            Terry Fullam, in his sermon “Life on Wings,” tells how mother eagles force their young to fly.  If he had spoken in generalities, he would have said, “When their fledglings are old enough, eagles actually destroy their own nest to force the offspring to fly.”

            But Terry used specifics:  “The mother eagle stands on the edge of the nest and begins to pick up the feathers and the leaves from the lining and cast them over the edge.  There they go.

            “‘Mother, what are you doing?’  Mother eagle pays no attention.  She takes out the interior of the nest.  She takes the great sticks, and with her strong beak she snaps them in two. She turns them up on end – pulls the place apart.

            “‘Mom, what are you doing?’  She pays no attention.  She begins to disassemble the nest, and the branches go plummeting down the face of the cliff.

            “‘Mom, we’re not old enough to go out into the world.’  But she doesn’t pay any attention.  Is she trying to break up housekeeping because she doesn’t like her children anymore?  Not at all.  She understands something they don’t know.  They weren’t made to perch in the nest.  They were made to soar, and they will never soar as long as they are in the nest.”

Leadership, Spring, 1992, page 116, 117