Death and peril and chickens...

My wife and I gave our son start up money for his own savings account as a birthday gift this year. We also gave him the option of investing the money in some way....and he chose to start his own business selling eggs to the neighbors.

With eggs, of course, comes chickens, and part of the process of starting his business involved us getting 6 chicks from the local urban farm store.

Unsurprisingly, the kids and I have taken a fondness to the little creatures (their just so fun to watch!), and while they stay under a heat lamp in our home, we have been carrying them all around the house in a basket (yes, it is like some Rockwell painting of spring and Easter just exploded all over our house).

Unfortunately, with the influx of living creatures in our home, comes more of the messiness of care taking for those creatures. Beyond cleaning up after them, there is a great responsibility towards their life and well being...

....well, the kids had the chicks outside the other day, and our dog got a hold of one and killed it. The kids, of course, were devastated, and to help them get closure, we dug a hole in the backyard, buried it, and gave it a gravestone (which they decorated themselves).

As sad and devastating as it was for them, I can't help but feel they learned a valuable life lesson. There is something really rich and right about seeing the fragility of life first hand... It teaches us to hold more reverence and gratefulness in the present, and to see life in a more wholistic way.

We are so detached from death in our modern world. From our food source to the movies we watch, our children are sheltered from any peril or idea of their own mortality. As a parent, I feel it's my job to slowly introduce them to this side of our humanity. If I were to hover over them and shield them from knowing how fragile and great life is, I would be doing them an injustice.

That said, RIP "rainbow". Go into the great chicken heaven in the sky knowing you taught us all a valuable lesson...

watership down

Just watched the classic movie WATERSHIP DOWN with the kids tonight. This used to be one of my favorites when I was their age. I must have watched it end to end a dozen times, impressing it's images and story deep into my early childhood memories. It's blood, visions, and constant allusions to the mystical entranced me.

What makes WATERSHIP DOWN so intriguing is it's danger and peril. In fact, the ending would not hold much redemptive weight if there was no comprehensible experience of the dangers and losses the main characters face on their journey to get there. True, smart, cunning peril seems to be lacking in modern day children's movies. If there is no sense of loss or weight of danger, their is no true sense of hope in return. Children's stories are powerful when they help the child mature in sober wisdom rather than massage the common ethos or try to flashdance with cleverness.

So bring on the peril! Next time you tell your children the story of David and Goliath dont forget to include David cutting off Goliath's head, sticking it on a pole, and dancing a victory dance over his body!