Proof the world is about to end… its all in the chickens

  Last week I ran across a lady who has finally proven, historically, that the world will be ending within the next couple of generations.  She said, my grandmother remembers how her mother would go out to the chicken yard snatch up a running chicken, hold its head tight and spin its body around…. wringing the chicken’s neck.  Then she’d throw the bird to the side where it’d flap and flop until dead.  She’d then take an axe, chop off the head, and throw the whole bird in a pot of boiling water.  After boiling the bird was ready for plucking, and the lovely aroma of burning down over a fire.  She’d clean it, butcher it, cook it, and serve it by the mashed potatoes. 

  The lady remembers that her grandmother didn’t enjoy that process very much and that’s why she did it different.  Instead of wringing the birds neck, she carried a 22 rifle to the chicken pen.  In a move that would make Annie Oakley’s chin drop, she’d pick out a chicken, shoot, and often times take the head clean off.  The rest of the process remained the same.  Her mother, the lady notes, verified these crack shots, but also how much she hated the rest of the process.  That’s why her mother skipped all of that.  She went to the store, bought a whole chicken, butchered it into the appropriate pieces and then cooked it.  It saved time, hassled, and a whole lot of the “ooh” factor.

  But, the lady triumphs, her generation has done one better.  No more joy of cold chickens, sharp knives and the quandry of what to do with the innards.  Thanks to Tyson, Pilgrim’s Pride, and others she now picks up from the store freezer only the pieces she wants… a package of precut legs, or thighs, or breasts all in a nice styrofoam tray.  Everything is done but the cooking.  So the way she figures it, one more generation can take things further, buying it already cooked, but that’s it.  The process has reached its eschatalogical climax.  Therefore, since there is nothing left, everyone will have eaten, the dishes will be done, and it will be time to turn in… for good.  Hard to argue with the logic.  It’s all in the chickens.

  When people get the ominous feeling that the world really is about to slide off into the apocalypse I think this is how it must have felt in the time of Augustine.  As the Roman empire was limping towards its close and everyone feared ” What’s happening to us… will the church survive?,” Augustine penned “The City of God.”  Reminding people, there is a city that is not shaken. 

  I don’t know if the world is coming to an end.  I do think we are seeing the beginning of western culture in hospice care.  It will take a few generations and you’ll still have to take Western Civ. to get a degree, but its “Pickett’s Charge” moment has probably passed, and things will go in a steady direction.  Like the folks “in between” as the premodern, supersticious world gave way to science and the modern age, we find ourselves unable to fathom what kind of world is coming.  I don’t think ”postmodernism” is it.  (I rather think postmodernism is just the “unraveling” part… we’re yet to see what will take it’s place.)  Like trying to explain scientific method and Kant’s philosphy to a 6th century shaman, I doubt we’d understand much of the new world even if someone told us.  The one thing we do know, it will still be God’s world, probably not better or worse than the ages before.  Also, back to Augustine, the kingdom of God will go forward…  different, for sure, but the kingdom nevertheless.  That is, unless the world ends!!

Post note:  Maybe in heaven children from all the different ages will gather together to ask God… “Which one of us did you love the best?”

 

56.8 Feet and Rising

  Greetings from the Mississippi delta.  We are finally beginning to get our delta legs under us.  After six months of calling Greenville home, it is still amazing to me how much culture changes only three hours down the road.  I seem to remember some of this when I moved from Oklahoma to Arkansas, and a lesser degree in our moves to and from Tennessee… but nothing like this move.  Maybe I was just blissfully unaware of it before.  So far, most all of its been good and if I have made any major cultural goofs, everyone has laughed quietly and forgave me.

  We are currently enjoying a great delta pasttime, no its not t-ball (Houston started playing recently), its river watching.  The mighty Mississippi has welcomed us to the delta by rising to one of its heighest levels on record.  There are lots of flooded areas, several roads underwater, and people commuting by boat from some neighborhoods.  But for most of the community there seems very little real worry.  Flood stage of the Mississippi is 48 feet.  When it gets past that it leaves its backs and goes in search of adventure.  Today the river is reported at 56.8 feet and rising.  By the time it crests on Thursday, latest prediction, it will be at 57.5 feet.  Only one or two times on record has it gotten this high… one was the famous flood of 1927.

  So why is there not massive panic with Hwy 65 and 82 flooded with cars headed for higher ground.  Its the levee.  A massive line of earth built over 200 years by generations of labor.  Running most of the way from Memphis to the gulf of Mexico the levee reaches as high as 35 feet.  If you drive Hwy. 1 from Memphis it’s like a companion traveling along with you as it darts in and out of the landscape.  Each generation has done its part to raise and strengthen the levee, and, in times like these, it gets great attention and care.  Keeping back the river; keeping us dry.

  I thought about how much the church is like that levee.  It is a trust handed from generation to generation.  Impossible to build in time of crisis, it has to be taken care of everyday.  That way, when we need its strength, it will be strong and there to harbour us.  I am thankful today for those who have poured massive amounts of strain and toil into providing security for my home.  Most of them I will never know or hear their name.  I am also thankful for those pioneers who moved the church from its little Galilean beginnings, out into the world, across oceans, to my front door, and all the congregations that have shaped my faith, my children’s faith, and generations to come.  I am thankful for those from all kinds of perspectives and attitudes who have built the congregations that have madeup our church family.

  Back to the actual levee.  Pray for those already flooded (living between the levee and the river) and pray that the levee holds out against the mighty river.  If it doesn’t… send a boat.      Danny