Foraging Chickens, Charlie

I love this time of year. Fields of spider webs on display in the mornings. This is my favorite time of year to be moving chickens. Partly because it means that chicken season is coming to an end, but even more so because I love seeing the chickens so aggressively go after the crickets and grasshoppers when being moved to fresh grass in the mornings. Another of many foraging options that conventionally raised chickens don’t have access to. We put another couple hundred pasture raised chickens in the freezers this week. We’ll be sorting through it and adding inventory to the online store in the coming week. 

Amy and the kids made a meat delivery to Knoxville early in the week. Amy and I delivered to Bristol and Kingsport yesterday afternoon. Followed by date #7 for the year. More broth making, moving cows, and farming as usual. Lots of running. Mostly running behind. 

While farming this week, I put Beyond Order on pause and started listening to Time for a Turning Point by Charlie Kirk with Brent Hamachek. Prior to his assignation, I knew of Charlie Kirk but wasn’t really an avid follow or consumer of his content. What was he saying that needed to be silenced? What kind of “hate speech” was he issuing that was deserving of death and justification for those applauding it? I know, those fringe outliers don’t represent the majority, but still… Who praises the cold blooded killing of anyone? If celebrating the death of those we disagree with becomes culturally acceptable, death to us all. 

Written almost 10 years ago, Charlie says in the prologue, “I’m just a 22 year old who loves individual freedom.” With so many reason do be divided, what is a better unifying message than that of freedom? 

The more I listened to his book and went back through some of his previous content and conversations, the more respect and admiration I have for Charlie. And the more angry I get at his killer and those who applauded his shooting. Anger doesn’t necessarily equate to hate (though I’ll admit flirting with that line initially). I get angry with my kids on a regular basis, but that doesn’t replace or remove my love for them. Jesus was angry on multiple occasions without hating the recipients of his anger. 

My initial emotional thought towards those celebrating Kirk’s killing was, “Go to hell.” But that’s not how Charlie would’ve responded. And that’s certainly not how Jesus responded to those who praised his own unjust crucifixion. Jesus came to bring salvation to a sinful world, even to the very ones that laughed at him on the cross.

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light.” John 3:17-20

The chapter concludes in John 3:36, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.”

All that to say, while Jesus tries continually to point us to heaven and eternal life, he also gives many strong warnings of hell and eternal wrath, “where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

While I wish no one to hell, to those cheering for Kirk’s murder, I warn that hell is the direction you are going. Not just as a final destination but as a direction that will continually bring hell to the world around you along the way. 

I pray for unity. Jesus prayed for our unity in John 17:20-23 - “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one — I in them and you in me — so that they may be brought to complete unity.”

In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul speaks of unity within the body of Christ. Though made up of differing parts, they are united in service to the mission of the body as a whole, “so that there should be no division in the body.”

That being said, though Jesus desires unity, tolerance is not the vehicle through which that unity is accomplished. He never tolerated sin. He loves us too much. When Jesus spoke of the body, he didn’t say, “If your hand causes you to sin, just tolerate it for the sake of maintaining unity in the body.” No, in Matthew 5:30 he says, “If your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.” 

Heaven and hell are at war. Earth is the battleground. Good and evil are waging war, not just amongst ourselves but even and perhaps especially within ourselves. 

Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers” in Matthew 5:9. This peace, however, is not accomplished by erasing the line between good and evil but by drawing it. 

Later in Matthew 10:34-35 he says, “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother.” 

The sword he spoke of wasn’t militaristic, note as he commanded Peter to drop his sword when being arrested in John 18:11.

With his sword, Jesus essentially drew a line in the sand saying, “Either you’re with me or you’re not.” That’s divisive. And unifying. Unity is not accomplished by erasing the line but by demanding us to choose which side of the line we want to be on.

One side goes to war in prayer, while the other side goes to war looting and burning cities. One side seeks and speaks the truth, while the other side trades the truth in for lies. One side is for freedom. The other side for force. There is no common ground between the two.

There is no alternative road between the narrow path to life and the broad road towards destruction. The two roads are heading in opposite directions. To meet in the middle is to get nowhere. If we try to straddle the line with a foot on each side, we are again rebuked by the words of Christ in Revelation 3:15-16 - “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm — neither hot nor cold — I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”

Jesus came to offer us unity with God and with each other. “No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) Opening the door to all who are willing. But closing it on all who refuse. Again divisive. 

There will be no unity between heaven and hell. At least we should hope not. If heaven is real, which I believe that it is, I pray hell has no presence there. Light will not become one with the darkness. There is a dividing line that separates. Unity is found when we choose to step out of the darkness and into the light. It is precisely the dividing line that makes unity possible. 

Amy gets nervous when I make these posts. And for good reason. We make our living selling our farm’s meat to individuals who read these weekly updates. From a business standpoint, the safer bet would be to keep these thoughts to my self and stick with cow, pig, and chicken talk. If this costs us business, so be it.

Jesus came to open the door to heaven for all of us, for those who mocked Charlie’s death and those who mocked his own. While the door is open to all, he doesn’t force us to come in. We choose which side we want to be on. To choose light is to choose repentance. Continually. 

“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” - 2 Peter 3:9

Have a good week.

Will