Backyard Economy

  July 17, 2018
For Sarah A. who reminded me that people are waiting
patiently to hear what is going on with my chickens. 

Beloved:
   
    My baby chicks are five weeks old now and I just moved them to the coop.  Nineteen hens share the space but there are most definitely two flocks.  They keep a separate and by no means equal policy at all times.  By they, of course, I mean the big girls.  They guard the food and water like border control officers.  The babies are not allowed on even the lowest roosting limbs and they have not yet discovered the henhouse.  Occasionally a little girl will dart into the big girl territory and screech hilariously as she gets chased back to her corner.  In the evenings I let the big girls out to forage, and the littles have the run of the place.  They run laps around the whole coop yard and eat to their hearts' content.  But most of all they drink.  They drink and drink and drink.

    The global economy right in my backyard.  More than enough for everyone but hoarded and protected by the few with the most power.  Though they are the larger group, the weaker ones go without for hours at a time, forced to take what they can get when opportunity avails.  What they’ve been given freely must be stolen to survive.​

   With one striking difference from our own economy, of course, these babies are growing every day.  Five weeks ago they were the size and weight of cotton balls.  Today they are solid little things on sturdy little legs.  They run fast and can fly a tiny bit.  In another month they will eat and drink at their leisure and sleep any place they please.  In six months they’ll earn their keep with eggs and, come next spring, they will rule the roost.

    Equity and justice play center stage in the economy of nature.  Each creature, plant, and element has something to contribute and gets fed along the way.  Allowed to flourish, all find space to breathe and grow, then give room for the others coming up.  The human needs mostly to stand back, to watch and learn, for all of us to thrive.  ​

Would that we might also find the peace that comes with trusting in the One who designed the system in the first place, that we all might eat and drink and sleep in peace.

~ peace & prayers,
pastor annette