5 Comments
User's avatar
Bess Malek-Maiorano's avatar

My hens laid their first egg today - I'm just beaming. Sage green no less... green eggs and ham. I feel as proud as if my laziest kid got into Harvard ...

I've had chickens for 6 months but I'm in love with what they're teaching me about God. About pecking at the edges, showing up at sunrise and crowing when needed, even if the HOA is mad.

So thankful for the persistence of the birds who build nests even when the future is full of storm and they do not question the worth of their feathers in ounces.

Expand full comment
Ben Hein's avatar

This is so good. "They do not question the worth of their feathers in ounces." Lord, teach us through the birds!

Expand full comment
Cindy Ragsdale's avatar

"Our family has been known to give them voices." ♥️

------

I love this piece, Ben, and especially your point of a church choosing to be an honorer of its place's history . . . a place and its peoples loved by God long before a church's arrival.

Expand full comment
Ben Hein's avatar

Thank you, Cindy! At some point, I'll write an essay about church planters as keepers of local history. As I've shown in a couple of previous essays, church planting today typically follows gentrification, going where the latest population boom of upwardly mobile people resides. Church planting, then, has a hand in erasing neighborhoods. Church planting, when it honors God's love for particular people and places, should honor what came before, not erase it.

Expand full comment
JAMES LANSBERRY's avatar

Another great post and if I may this one has a beautiful “tone” to it as well as talking about the darkness of the way (largely white and wealthy) Christians have abandoned the cities. Maybe it was the birds who colored your language with optimism and beauty but I enjoyed this more than many of your past excellent writings. Thank you.

Expand full comment