Christmas And The Chicken Metaphor -By Kehinde Oluwatosin B.

Kehinde Oluwatosin

Every 25th day of December is a terrible day for the chickens, millions of chickens around the world get assaulted, battered, de-animalised in what could be simply describe as the chicken genocide. What we celebrate as Christmas is the tragedy that has ribboned the whole animal kingdom in black curtains. Who is going to pacify the chickens? Who will comfort her in the midst of her grief? Sorry chicken, you are a tragic victim of an agreement that took place over two thousand  years ago when a woman who in her quest to save a medieval world from destruction decided to lend her belly to an angel. The result of this divine arrangement is the grace that has kept us alive today as humans and has  left the chickens in agony of unquantifiable litres of broth around the world. The result of such unanimous divine arrangement is the reason why the chicken has to die on a day like this.

Although little difference suffice between you and the humans that consumes you in atonement for three hundred and fifty nine days lived in restlessness and irreverence,but unfortunately you are a victim of a divine arrangement that placed humans above you and left you in your broiler and layers state. Despite all these divine advantages that left us above the chicken what have we made of it as humans?  The birth of Jesus has brought a radical definition into the works of grace,the law has taken to its heels welcoming grace, but what have we done with this grace? Grace simply defined as God’s unmerited kindness. Grace in its magnanimity has kept us alive despite the odds of living in a nation where to be alive isn’t a right, grace in its awesomeness has made Buhari the president even in his twilight years in  a determinate resolve to confound the wisdom of the rest of us. Should we blame grace for being this magnanimous? Should we blame a divine arrangement that has reshaped and coined a new shape for our lives in eternity? Can we say grace has not worked for us in the past decades despite the odds that abound amidst us? Has grace not produced Nobel laureates among us? Has grace not tagged Nigeria in Chinua Achebe’s success story of ‘Things fall apart’? all these happened despite the dent in our education system,has grace not  won us the Nations cup  despite the mishaps that rot in our sport commissions?

Can we still narrate the same story of grace that worked for us over four and half decades ago today? The grace that qualifies us for sporting events even when we don’t prepare, does it still work for us today? Does grace that made us morally upright people in the past  not left us as gays now invite the rest of us to be part of them? Has the house not fallen as Karl Maier described it in his brilliant book “The house has fallen?” Have we not finally abuse the grace that was available to us as a nation,has grace not suffer the tragic culture of abuse that exist in our national life? I wish the grace that is made available to human beings is also available to the chickens perhaps the chicken would have crowed to wake us up on boxing day in case we plan not to do so. Let the dead bury the dead,let the chickens mourn for themselves, I  also share in your empathy. Let the chicken take solace in the fact that we would meet again, although breath of life may have come between us here on earth. Let the chicken rejoice because we would both end in the same place in death, for from the dust are we made. Merry Christmas chickens, are we better than you?

Kehinde Oluwatosin B is a prolific writer and public speaker from Abeokuta ,Ogun State.
E-mail: kehindeobabatunde@gmail.com

Twitter: @_tqatqa