Before I lay down for my Sunday afternoon nap, Jan said, “When you get up, would you cut up the chicken in the fridge.” So, when I got up, I quietly left the bedroom and headed down to the front porch to write and think. Usually, it works better if I think before I write, but that doesn’t always happen. Halfway down the steps, I hear from Jan in the study, “Don’t’ forget to cut up the chicken.”
Ugh!! I don’t want to do that task! I tried to dissuade her by proclaiming my acute lack of chicken culinary anatomical dissection. My protest came in the form of sweet-sounding passive-aggressive rebellion. It didn’t work.
I poked a hole in the vacuum-sealed fowl with my selected carving knife. Water, or some sort of post-death liquid, poured forth over the counter. I tossed in a paper towel and then another and another. It was a messy business affair. And raw chicken cooties were crawling all over my hands and counter. I wasn’t at all sure a trip to the closest emergency room for antibiotics would not be necessary.
The last time I was required to cut up a chicken was at York’s Supermarket in Tullahoma, Tennessee. I was in my junior year of high school. Mr. York sent me to help in the meat department. I was tasked with cutting up the chickens delivered in a wood box. That meant I was to make four passes of a carcass on the bandsaw; wing, leg, wing, leg, and half the rest down the center. There, I was a butcher boy in the most repulsive definition of the term.
Jan’s kitchen is nothing like York’s meat department! The demands are more stringent. However, a heartfelt attempt has far greater rewards.
My attitude toward the messy dismemberment changed as I fulfilled my domestic obligation. It began to change with the puncture of the plastic. A vision of going to the coop, lopping off a head, yanking feathers out, and then disemboweling the creature could have been part of the task came to mind and put a more positive spin on my job.
That I shed none of my own blood was another mood enhancer. That seldom happens when I use a cutting tool in the wood shop.
As I headed to the porch, I called up the steps, “Your chicken is cut up.” Please note that it was her chicken, not mine. It is hers until some portion of it lays on my plate. I am pleased to take possession of the protein portion of my diet at that moment. At that time, my part has morphed from dead animal to human food, similar to carrots and potatoes.
After processing the event, the final change of attitude has come to rest in my heart; Jan’s “Thank you, honey.” And all is right with the world! The yuck of the coldly lying muck in my hands was transformed instantly by those well-placed words of the one who loves me the best.
Life is filled with distasteful tasks. There are extended tenures of life when all there is one yucky task after another, or worse, one continually unending perpetual laborious, grueling task. The lives of others around us appear to be prepackaged with ease and rewards. It is not infrequent for a follower of Jesus to come to the emotional decision, “What’s the use? This is just too hard.” We are tempted to find a shortcut or exit ramp. Please don’t! The reward for staying at your Kingdom task is coming. In one of Jesus’ parables, he had a king say to his slave,
“…Well done, good and faithful slave! You were faithful over a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Share your master’s joy!” (Matthew 25:23, CSB)
(To be “faithful” is to not give up or settle for less than the full measure of God’s love promised to you.)
Because Jan loves me, she wants to prepare a meal for us. Because I love her, I comply with her request. Jan doesn’t cook meals because there is nothing she would instead do. And I don’t assist because I like taxidermy. At the heart of it all is the best kind of faithful love.
Photo – The St James Bridge over the Willamette River in Portland, Organ.
Baldwin Heirlooms 