The Egg Ceremony

Many of you know that I was involved in a traumatic event two weeks ago along with two colleagues.
It is only by the grace of God that we are alive today.

We received many signs of kindness since then to help us process what we had experienced.

On Friday a week ago, one of the language communities that we are working with, the Nghwla (Mbatto) held a special "Egg Ceremony" for us, something they do for people who have narrowly escaped death.

We were each given a hard boiled egg.

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I held the egg in my hand thoughtfully as she explained that it represents the new life we have been given. 

What ceremony happens without ritual phrases?  In this case, "Here is your white chicken without feathers" (egg). This was said first in French, but then in Nghwla.  There may be some significance to it that escapes me. 

As you might imagine, the next step was to shell the egg and eat it, or should I say "partake".

But we also had to take a bit of the yolk and smear it on our foreheads. A sign, I suppose, that we had been marked by this event, forever changed. 

First time I have ever had "egg on my face" and been glad about it.

The final bit of the ceremony was the gift of a second, raw egg, to take home and cook. 

I had mine for lunch. Since I wanted an omelette, I added it to an egg I had had in the fridge from before - and that seemed strangely appropriate, mixing the life before with the new life after. 

This was truly a remarkable gift that was given to us, to help us process and mark this important passage. 

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How interesting that God would use something from the richness of another culture to minister to me, to fill a slot that we don't even know is missing in our culture. 

Ceremonies and rituals are interesting, aren't they? 

There are commonalities from culture to culture. They may differ in form, but they exist for similar things: births, name givings, rites of passage, religious initiation, dedication and inaugurations, weddings, funerals. 

There are always others present to witness it. You can't have a ceremony by yourself. 

And there are always words said in formulaic ways. If you get those wrong, it will have to be redone.

But isn't it wonderful that there are also physical elements present, symbols to tie what is happening relationally and spiritually to our physical existence, to make it memorable. 

• Colors: White wedding dresses, black clothes at funerals, red and green at Christmas, pastel purples and Yellows and pinks at Easter.
• Sounds: Bells, choirs, music, dancing
• Clothes: coordinated, and colorful and out of the ordinary. 
• Symbols: rings, lighting of candles,  water, wine, bread, oil or ashes on the forehead  or egg,
• Physical contact and actions: water of baptism, cutting of hair, holding hands, partaking wine or bread or egg

The symbols will be different from culture to culture, but in every case, it's not enough to just be together and say the right things without the other symbolic and physical elements. You can't have Eucharist or communion without partaking some sort of bread and either wine or juice. You can't have a wedding without a ring.

God plants our spirits and souls into bodies. And we have ceremonies and rituals to help ground important events into our physical existence. 

We were debriefed last week after our trauma and they told us that our mind, spirit and emotions would need time to process everything that would be out of sync with our bodies,  which were physically fine but our brains did not know it yet. As a result, we experience various physical symptoms that reflect our emotional distress. 

Thanks to God for helping people to create ceremonies to join the spiritual to the physical, and to the Nghwla for sharing their ceremony with us!