There’s a Norwegian researcher who is studying chickens’ ability to learn and remember. She studies their working memory regarding food sources and their recognition of relationship between her and themselves. Chickens are inquisitive by nature, and can learn from watching each other. They form social hierarchies, “pecking” orders, and demonstrate singular personalities related to that order. They look out for one another, particularly their young. (see Luke 13:31-35)
They even comprehend cause -and-effect.
This fact reminds me of the ICE raid on seven food processing plants on August 7th: cause and effect. It’s been three weeks since the arrest of 680 Latinix workers. Three weeks after a mass shooting in El Paso by a domestic terrorist targeting “Mexicans”.
Researchers say three weeks is the limit of working memory in many of us. Cause and effect relationships that seemed so clear almost a month ago are blurring into random particles.
Even eating free-range chicken and eggs doesn’t seem to help, despite the memory boost from their choline. Who will take care of the children? The courts have ruled their parents are “felons” for working hard to feed them and US. Where will they find shelter, now that the chicken boning jobs are gone? What will happen to the small grocery stores who depend on selling chicken and eggs every day including Sunday? It’s chicken pickin’ business as usual for managers and owners. They’re not facing a judge for having “knowingly” recruited these workers for years.
I study my painted chicken file, looking for some kind of pecking order. It presently roosts in a Delaware attic, awaiting a move to the old Inn. Cause-effect. Chicken-Egg. What happened to our ability to form life-sustaining relationships? Why has our working memory of our nation’s immigrant alienness failed? No chicken ever crosses the road alone.
I see the image of the mother hen calling to her chicks who refuse to take shelter in every headline. “O Jerusalem. O Washington!”
The final relationship is the truth and trauma of our betrayal. “We don’t know him, this Jesus. We don’t know him. We don’t know him!” I don’t need to imagine the damning sound of a rooster’s call. I hear it every morning.