The Great Hen in the Sky

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Matthew 23:37

When we were children we had chickens. My father decided that we needed to have this experience when we moved to the country. So the neighbor gave us several pullets and my brother and I became mothers to our baby chickens. In a streak of creative genius, Brother named them One Spot, Two Spot, Three Spot and Four Spot, though none of them really were spotted. Sometimes the rest of us could tell which was which, but only Brother really knew who was who in that brood. That was because he was their mother. They had imprinted on him, and wherever he went, they went.

He found a chick in the woods once, under a doghouse that a wind storm had overturned, killing the mother and ruining all the eggs in it. Except this one little chick. Brother became his mother, too, and chick came home in his shirt pocket to live in the big empty chicken coop, all alone. I used to creep down the stairs and out to the chickenhouse after dark, bringing him back up to my room to sleep inside of an old white glove, tucked under my chin. He was quiet and (I thought) rather grateful to get to sleep in my bed every night. But then he outgrew the glove and another morning he woke us all up with an croaky, adolescent crow, and he was banished from the house by my mother. By then, chick had become Giovanni, the great Rhode Island Red rooster of Large Road. Since he had grown up being around humans, Giovanni felt that he was a human. When we were outside working in the garden, Giovanni was close at hand, pulling up worms and offering them to us with excited clucks. When we went for a walk down the road, here came Giovanni after us, running on his stilty long legs, eager to be part of things.
The funniest sight involving Giovanni happened every Sunday at our house. Dad would go out to mow the lawn on the riding lawnmower and Giovanni felt that he should sit on my father's lap for the duration of the task. But Dad would (on purpose) head off down the lawn, leaving a wide mowed swath of grass upon which Giovanni ran with great determination behind the lawnmower. After running for several lengths of the property, my father would swoop him up and put him on his lap. Giovanni would nestle right down against my father and content himself with delicately picking flecks of grass off my father's shirt, or giving cackling commentary about birds overhead or sudden noises from running over tree roots. After all, my father was Giovanni's mother, too, and he could not be content without being near, Dad's arm wrapped protectively around the 20-lb bird, holding him up against his side.

As we think about Mother's Day, it is not only women whom we celebrate. Jesus, in His impassioned comments over the city of Jerusalem, proclaimed Himself the greatest mother there ever was: our Mother-Father God.

So to all who provide solace, cheer, inspiration, or protection, for all the children, students, cats, chickens, men, or any other living thing: Happy Mother's Day. May you mother others and allow the Great Hen in the Sky to be your mother, too.