There once was a chicken who had trouble laying eggs. She was the laughing stalk of the flock (or so she thought). Then one day she had an egg. It was a LARGE egg. It nearly broke her in half. Because it darn near killed her, she figured it must be a very special egg indeed. She gave up going to the yard to cluck with the other hens. She gave up eating, sleeping and every other pleasure a hen can have to guard her very special charge. One day the egg hatched.
Out came the scrawniest, palest, little chick you ever saw. That is if anyone ever saw this chick. No one did though. That hen was so certain that her chick was the most precious gift the world had ever received that she decided it was much too nice a gift to give to just any world. She decided to save the chick until the world got better and when that wasn't happening she decided to save the world so it would be better enough for her chick to one day go out in. That's a big job though, and hens are not so different from humans. They put off doing things that are hard. That is why hens never file their tax returns. So she soon tired of wallpapering the world to suit her taste and instead wallpapered her nest and read lots of books on how to raise chickens. Because this hen was so worried about doing everything right and so worried that something might go wrong she never did anything. She kept that chick in the nest and sat on it just as she had when it was an egg. That poor chick suffocated and died. The End
That was mean to end it like that wasn't it?
Ok, she squashed it and it died. The End
Still not happy?
Ok, sitting on it kept it from getting the sunlight it needed so it never grew and was sickly until it died. The End
Are you still mad at me because the chick dies? Well, I have news for you, every chick dies. Every hen dies. I think we are all so worried that someone might die, that we don't live; for fear we might accidentally die. Isn't that silly? I think we think if our kids get the highest test score or jump through hoops the best or can recite the Bible in Greek they will be immortal. Nope. They will just be boring hoop stars who people avoid at parties because nobody understands a judgemental word they are saying Then they will die. Hopefully they will grow very old first, but eventually they will die. We all will. The End.
When my oldest baby was a real baby (he is 18 now) I felt like I wanted to build a tower for him to live in. Towers are costly though, so when he came in my room one night and told me he was afraid of the boogey man I said "I know, me too!" and I put us in a plastic bubble so we would be safe. But when he started showing signs of maturity I did too and I noticed that I looked an awful lot like the boogey man (I should not have installed a mirror in our bubble). So I got out of the bubble (ok he kicked me out) and got into therapy instead. Now he is just a newborn man and darned if he too bears a striking resemblance to the boogey man some days!!
So our bubble is empty. I have not put anyone else in there yet. It's a bad idea, kind of like putting wet toys in a closed plastic bin. Even though they are clean, even though they are shiny, even though they are cute to look at from the outside; though they smell nice at first, eventually they will not and if you keep them closed up too long when you finally do open the lid a big cloud of yuck comes out and everyone can smell it so no one wants to play with them.
What have we learned here? Your kid smells like mold? The boogey man within ate your chick? No, no no!. That is not the point at all. What we have learned is that everybody dies no matter what we do. Everybody is scary not just the people "out there", in fact, it's the person "in here" (I am pointing to my chest if you can't see me...if you can, then I am calling the police because it is the middle of the night and you have no business being here) you have to tangle with.
We can't keep our kids locked up in an air tight US approved receptical for very long without something stinky happening. However, if we can give our children enough air to breathe they might just breathe new air into OUR stale thoughts and they might just come back and breathe new life into our tired old wings when we are old and cynical (or just annoy us with their new fangled ideas). Or they might just tear our nest to shreds and kick us in the head with their sharp claws as they fly away never to return. I've seen that happen more than once. Either way we all die so I guess it all works out in the end...badly, but it all works out. The End.
So, since everyone dies I ask myself 2 questions at the end of the day:
1) Did anyone die?
2) Did I kill anyone?
If the answer to both is "no" then all in all it has been a pretty good day.
The end.
p.s. Even though that is a good ending, I want to put this tag in for a public service. When my oldest son told me he was afraid, I did not really confess to being afraid of the boogey man nor build a bubble. I actually quite calmly said in answer to my son's observations that there were monsters under his bed, "Really? Wow. Good thing I got this spray!" I handed him a can too. Since they were imaginary monsters, imaginary monster spray is just what you need to eradicate them. Had they been real monsters we would have used something much stronger.
Luckily, we have only had to face a few real live monsters. Those are times for prayer and teeth gnashing (better if it is not done in that order). If there is anyone reading this who has REAL and present monsters, this blog probably does not apply. There are times we have to all sit on our chicks and there are times we all need to rally around the hens siting on their chicks. I am not thinking of any of that at the moment. Nor am I thinking very long about why I think death is the whole point here, nor why I think death is something bad. That will be addressed in some other blog. I am just thinking about the type of hens that we can all be sometimes and why we should not be this type of hen.
LIfe can suck the life out of you. Life can be the fox in the henhouse. I guess that is why I am writing this for those of us hens who are not in real and present danger. When we run around pecking at each other because we are certain the sky is falling and the fox is breathing down our chicken necks, it dishonors those for whom that is true and it wastes the few hours of painless living that each of us are blessed with. So quit your squawking and flapping and fly a little already!
Enough hen pecking for tonight!
The End
I......
am.........
the river......
The river.......
is........
me.....
I.....
am not......
a hen......
But the boogey man....
possibly.......
Posted by: Renee Anker | October 07, 2005 at 08:54 PM