Rooster Rant

So, do you want to know an animal that is NOT cute?!? A rooster. A rooster is not cute. In fact, they are the opposite of cute. If I didn’t have a huge appreciation for chicken, the meat, and, well, a good omelet, I would say, let’s do away with them. (For you farmer folk out there, don’t be rolling your eyes at me. I KNOW that roosters aren’t the egg layers and whatnot. I just recognize their importance in perpetuating the chicken population.) So, why am I hating on roosters, you ask? Mmmk. Let me tell you:

Once upon a time, I had this lovely, romanticized vision of what a rooster was and his job. He lives on a farm. He struts around knowingly, nodding at all the lady chicks scratching about. And, in the mornings, he pops up on one of those fences with the big X in the center. Then, just as the sun is cresting the horizon, he boldly cock-a-doodle-doos (JUST THAT ONE TIME, mind you), as the farm and it’s people rise to the new day.

This is false. FALSE.

Our neighbor at the guest house has a small flock of chickens that roam around doing their chicken-y thing throughout the day. The rooster, well, he does his rooster thing. And that looks nothing like the lovely scene described above. This guy needs a wristwatch. Or, like, working eyeballs to actually gauge the position of the sun. He began his crowing thing around 3:00 AM some mornings. And then continued regularly and persistently ‘til ACTUAL morning and then throughout the day. When feeling extra generous, he would perch on our porch where his voice would echo a bit and ring throughout the place. We joked about water pistols and whatnot. (Okay, so maybe we weren’t joking.) Some of us even thought that maybe rooster stew wouldn’t be the worst dish in the world. But, as he was not our rooster with whom we could freely create delicacies, he continued to strut his noisy self around day after day after dayafterday.

Where is God in all this? (RIGHT??) Okay, He was there. First of all, this rooster doing his thing is all part of God’s created order. I can respect that. And, maybe I wasn’t truly ready to open my eyes yet when Sir Rooster announced the AM, but, after I finished imagining and plotting his demise, what a perfect time to pray. Thanks for that, rooster . . . and Jesus! AND . . . each day I woke up, I was reminded that I am one blessed girl. I get to be in a place that is my second home, with people I love like family, and witness, firsthand, what God is doing in this place and in the lives of those I care about fiercely. That’s a gift.

So, Rooster, I still don’t really like you. And we will continue to agree to disagree about what constitutes “morning,” BUT, feathered one . . . each day you woke me to the new day where HIS mercies are new. I can dig that.