Michelle Coram
Michelle Coram writes about how an awful mistake involving a brick and a chicken gave her a glimpse of grace she still doesn't understand.
Unpack the issues...
Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid stuff. - Bono
When I was twelve I killed a baby chicken with a brick. Well, a cement slab, actually, but that doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.
As with many of the terrible things I have done, I meant no harm. Quite the opposite. I was raising the baby chickens for my aunty who lived in the country. I loved those baby chicks. I had colour coded them on the top of their little heads with felt tip pens so I could tell them apart. For the most part I had them inside in a box, under a lamp. But it was a lovely, sunny day, so I put them outside, under a three-sided wire frame, with two cement slabs propped against the frame.
The point of my little home-made structure was to keep the chickens safe from our cat. But I had set it up in the shade. The little chicks would get cold, so I decided to move them into the sun. I lifted up the wire frame and the two cement slabs fell in.
One little chicken was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I’m still haunted by both my stupidity and the plaintive cheep-cheeping that followed. The chick didn’t die straight away. As I lifted the slab up, I thought maybe it was ok. It wasn’t. Its insides were exposed, like a mini-portion of spaghetti bolognaise, garnished with feathers.
I screamed — a long, loud, futile scream. My mum came running, thinking I was being attacked. She didn’t realise I had been the one causing the carnage. My poor mum was as helpless as me. Clearly the chicken had to be killed, but neither of us could bring ourselves to do it.
I went to my room and sobbed, waiting for my dad to get home. My schoolteacher dad had no doubt already had his quota of idiotic twelve-year-olds for the day. I can’t imagine he would have been thrilled to be told that before he could have his afternoon cuppa, he just had to end the life of a mutilated chicken.
When I heard a tap at my door, I opened it, and braced myself for the lecture I deserved. Why hadn’t I understood that the cage only had three sides? Why didn’t the heaviness of the cement slabs compute in my brain? How could I have been so careless with the life of a tiny little creature of God?These would have been relevant points to make, but my dad just took me in his arms. “I hear you had a bit of bad luck today,” he said, as I cried all over his shirt.
I interrupt this tender scene to share the comments a friend made when I recently told him the story. He snorted, and said “YOU had a bit of bad luck?? What about the CHICKEN?”
Uh, yes. The chicken.
It was back in the day of backyard incinerators, so the chicken had a cremation followed by Christian funeral service, presided over by me. I went from murderer to minister in less than 24 hours.
The American writer Anne Lamott says, “I do not at all understand the mystery of grace — only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.” I was completely undeserving of the love I received that day, and I couldn’t have been more grateful for it.
Still, important life lessons come at a price. I wish I could have learned about New Testament forgiveness without engaging in Old Testament sacrifice. No doubt the doomed chicken would have shared that wish too.
And while I may have received a glimpse into the transforming, transcendent nature of love that day, I’ll never eat spaghetti bolognaise again.
Michelle Coram is a lawyer and writer who lives in Adelaide. Despite what you might assume after reading this piece, she loves animals very much and is in fact vegetarian most of the time. Michelle shares her house with two very spoiled cats who continue to adjust their lifestyle expectations upwards. Michelle likes to mull over issues of life and faith and her many past mistakes at her blog.
Unpack the issues
- When have you given or received love that you didn’t deserve? How were you changed by the experience? How was the other person changed?
- You can donate a chicken to a needy family for $5 at the useful gifts website.
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written by Aaron , June 02, 2009
Hi Michelle,
That was a good article, thanks for writing it. I think the ethical treatment of animals is an important issue and one Christians should think about. See http://www.jesusveg.com/ for some interesting arguments (and ones I support!).
Best wishes,
Aaron
written by Mary , July 14, 2009
I can say I feel bad that the baby chick met with a life's end in this fashion. I think how your father handled the situation and your sorrow was very deserved. For a young child to witness the loss of any animal they've been caring for is tough.
As to the other person's comments, Jesus broke bread as well as served fish, or so the bible says. Saying He was a vegan, if you take that into account, would be false information. Ethical treatment of animals doesn't mean we, as omnivores, should undergo unhealthy eating habits.
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