Cultivating Resilience

My wife and I began our chicken journey about 3 years ago to have a closer and more meaningful relationship with our food source. We started with around 15 laying hens, and that number has ebbed and flowed over the years. Besides being able to make an omelette with eggs from chickens that are seriously pampered (my wife spoils them more than some people spoil their pets), a wonderful outcome of this undertaking was our children learning responsibility by collecting the eggs every day, along with feeding the hens and changing their water. An unintentional byproduct of this, was that our boys, especially my oldest son developed strong relationships with these animals…all the hens received names, were lovingly pet and affectionately held.

On occasion, he would bring his favorite hen, “Bessie,” inside and feed her blueberries by hand. The whole endeavor became much more than a mechanism to cut the middleman out of our food supply; it became a spiritual practice that showed our family the interconnectedness of all living beings and a true reverence for these animals. A connection that waned with the industrial revolution and has become increasingly severed and fractured with the rapidly increasing modernity of daily life. About a month ago, my ever-attentive son noticed that one of the hens was very low energy and seemed sick. We kept an eye on her and to our disappointment, her health declined rapidly, indicative of a serious disease or infection…in which case it’s best to consider the overall health of the flock, and separate and cull the sick bird. 

Being a responsible caretaker, when a bird does get sick, the onus of responsibility falls on me to handle it. I was not raised in a family that hunted, and this whole process has been a challenging experience for me, and I notice that I have the tendency to drag my feet when it’s time to transition one of our chickens the few times it has been necessary. To my amazement, my son became a passionate advocate exclaiming “Dad, we need to do something! She’s suffering, we need to end her suffering. We need to do it now!”  Which reminded me of a quote that is usually attributed to the Buddha, “pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.” 

It’s a fun, joyous experience to collect the myriad of colorful eggs these wonderful creatures leave for us every day, to sit in the run and have coffee with my wife and pet them when they jump on our lap, and enjoy the freshness of their eggs in our morning breakfast; but it’s painful when that relationship has to come to an end, but suffering ultimately ensues when you argue with reality.  Unwittingly, these chickens, and this chicken coop has become a microcosm for life; in all its beauty…and frailty.

My son and I carried Karen lovingly away from the flock as she was too weak to move.  I steeled myself, as my son watched from a short distance, and deftly ended Karen’s life.  When it was done, my son came to me and I held him, both of us with tears in our eyes.  After a short moment, he looked up at me.

“Dad, we need to bury her, so she can continue to nourish the ground as she nourished our family.”

My heart swelled with pride as I told him that that was a fantastic idea.  We both grabbed shovels, and as I watched my 9 year old son dig into the earth, I was reminded that everything in this world has meaning and that a full and satisfying life is not indicative of the absence of challenge, but rather cultivating the ability to run towards those challenges, and not shy away from them.