Here Be Chickens

I've never really been one for signs in my life. I mean, I don't believe in predestination, because I think we all make our own choices in life. But the chickens this week have been hard to overlook...I mean, chickens. I don't eat them, so they can't be out for revenge. And, yet, everywhere I look, it's been chickens these last few days.

I was thinking about it while I had one of those "I Love Lucy" moments in which I often find myself. See, I can dance with grace and elegance, but truly, I have no grace in daily life. I am as clumsy as clumsy can be. I can trip over a line drawn on the carpet. One of my good friends calls me "Grace," because I don't have any. And I get myself into situations - the keystone cop kind of situations. And yes, I can laugh about it, usually while I'm in the midst of one of these nearly impossible predicaments, making it even harder to recover some dignity. The latest loss of dignity involved pipe cleaners and a giant bean bag. I blame Carlo....it's his bean bag, and it attacked me. See, when I say giant bean bag, I mean big enough for fifteen middle school kids to sit on at one time - I know, we used it for photos at the last school dance. Somehow, "take it back to the Youth House for Carlo," sounded just like, "put it in my storage shed." So, when I run into the storage shed to get a package of pipe cleaners, I find that the targeted storage box is - of course - at the back of the shed, and on the bottom shelf. But the giant bean bag loomed between me and my goal. Undaunted, I shoved it up and to the side, and retrieved my pipe cleaners. In typical graceful fashion, I turned, lost my balance, fell, and landed on my back with the giant bean bag on top of me.

I laid there, listening to the sound of children playing on the playground behind me, and hoping that no one would come along and shut the door - imagine my kids' dismay when I didn't pick them up...no one would ever know what happened to me, unless they came looking for more art supplies. I was pushing ineffectively at the gelatinous blob, but kept giggling and just had to stop and rest for a moment. It was then the chickens came back to me. They'd been in the road that morning, a whole gaggle of them. Well, a flock, I guess, because geese run in gaggles. But I like the word gaggle better than flock, so I'm going to call them a gaggle of chickens....I don't live in the country, and I don't live near a poultry farm. Why there were chickens on Bingle Road during morning traffic, I'll never know. But there were chickens in the road.

This brought back to mind the portion of a bizarre dream from the night before when the pastor and associate pastor from my church were wrestling with a chicken in the sanctuary. Was that a premonition of chickens to come? Who knows, I was reminiscing and probably losing oxygen from being folded up under the enormous bean bag....

I finally managed to get my legs up and under and heaved myself out from under the bean bag of death. I probably looked a little strange, with my hair frizzed out in every direction, stomping back to my office, and breathing a little funny. Still, I had visions of chickens dancing in my brain.

So, I ran into a friend, who launched into a story about how her three year old was randomly screaming, "fight, chickens, fight" and I started to think there was more than mere coincidence at work here in the universe.

I mean, there has to be a reason why common threads come to gether and knit ugly wool scarves like the chicken stories. Ooh, OK, really failed metaphor. But I wonder if I'm wrong about fate? Maybe we have to rise up to meet it with grace. If that's so, I"m in trouble, because I REALLY don't have any grace of my own....but seriously, do I really get to make my own choices, or are all these seemingly random bits and pieces of my life really not so random at all. I might choose my friends, but I can't pick my chickens? I'd never try to count them before they hatched, because, well, that would just be weird.

No, no I'm pretty sure I can't get a concussion from something as soft as a bean bag.... but my thoughts have been racing today, and I wonder again how much of who I am is about the choices I have made - which is what I have always believed - and how much is who I was made to be. There once were two roads, and I chose the one less traveled, but there were chickens in the middle of it anyway....oh, dear....no matter which road I choose, am I destined to come back to the chickens? How much of our lives has to do with free will, which I have always belived was God's gift AND curse to us - the gift of choice? How much of my life has already been written and I just have to go along for the ride? If chickens are inevitable, then will it matter that I choose something else?

The answer, still, is that I refuse to believe that we are predestined to chickens or any other absurd realities. I've thought about it a lot today, and I certainly have had the time, you know, lying about under bean bags and such. I went and reassuringly opened my freezer. I have chick 'n - no chickens here. I choose to keep them alive and healthy somewhere else. Here there be eggs, but no chickens. We have cats, and frogs, and mice, and hamsters and hedgehogs - but no chickens. I still choose my own path, and if that path contains chicken, I'll bolster up my patience, and just walk on by. Or, maybe I'll lock them up with the giant bean bag and let them fight it out.

I have my own demons to fight on a daily basis - the chickens are on their own.