This week’s newsletter is a poem about love that my readers will recognize also for scientific underpinnings.   I publish this now in anticipation of the wedding of my daughter, Davita, to her fiance, Ben, next month.

The poem is called, “The Dance of Eggs and Stones.”  I published it in my book, THE WONDER OF AGING (Atria, 2013).  Enjoy!

The Dance of Eggs and Stones

Every day we must risk something.  Life is a dance between eggs and stones.  Things must break, if we are to say, “I’ve lived!”  Arrogant or just dreaming, ignorant or testing the world, our risks break shells before little birds are born.  We are that powerful.

You know this, don’t you?  You’ve felt the guilt and shame of your errors.  We who carry light in our heads are so smart we often remember people’s fragility after we’ve broken their hearts with our dancing.

What will it take to be a better person–to dance with more grace, to know when my harsh steps are right ones, and wrong ones?  If I lie down at night recalling a day for which I should be judged, mustn’t I change? The next morning, mustn’t I rise up and pray?

I must learn the next piece of choreography God has written for me in covenant.   I must work to meet brothers and sisters who will advise me.  I must listen to what they say, see what they see, wander toward their wisdom as does the stone from the original mountain falling toward the nest of eggs below.

Friends, if you have been mean or arrogant or ignorant or mistake prone this last week, don’t use your actions or shames as excuses to stand away from this life.  Our goal is not to become stationary in God’s eyes.  God made us from both eggs and stones so we can fulfill the eternal commandment of intimacy:  repair.

Friends, isn’t it wonderful this life is so fragile?

How else would we teach one another how to love?

Copyright Michael Gurian 2021