Yellow Hen Not Peck Me

Brock is a fast learner.

Two days ago Brock and I went out to feed our chickens. This is one of Brock’s favorite things to do with daddy. He knows how much to feed the hens, where to find the eggs, and how to gently (for the most part) hand the eggs to daddy. Brock has watched me reach under hens to gather lots of times. On this day, Brock decided to try it on his own.

My back was turned and Brock decided to check under the yellow hen. We have several nice black hens and a nice red hen… as it turns out, the yellow hen is not on the nice list. All of the sudden I heard screaming and Brock is crying. Through the tears, he tells me that the yellow hen pecked him. She got him pretty good just below his left eye. We finished gathering the eggs and went in for the day. Here’s where the story really gets cute.

Brock and I go out again to feed the chickens the next day. This time, totally without any prompting from dad, Brock picks up a pretty big stick as we walk up to the chicken coop. The yellow hen happened to be standing at the door. Brock raised the stick in his right hand and confidently proclaimed…

“Yellow hen not peck me.”

I’ve told that story several times and gotten belly laughs from lots of folks. It has also been insightful to think about.

You don’t have to teach a 2 year old to pick up a stick to defend himself after he’s been hurt. Adults seem to behave the same way. The trouble is with adults, we take a long time to let go of our sticks even when the danger is long gone. This can be a bump in the road for people trying to build and live in a healthy community of grace. We are humans and will hurt each other. Its inevitable. I see many people (including the guy in the mirror) that walk around with our “yellow hen” sticks just in case. The mystery is that God says we can put our sticks down. He says that we can trust him, and that we can trust each other. But won’t we get pecked again? Probably. That’s just a result of getting too close.

But maybe getting “too close” to each other is what we need.