iGod

Hugh Fernley Whittingstall's Chicken Bun Fight

Some of you may know that we keep chickens. In fact we have a smallholding of 10 Rhode Island Reds.

When we moved up to Suffolk from Twickenham to start the church we brought our old shed with us.

My wife then had the great idea of converting the shed into a chicken house, so with the help of a local farmer we set up. Knowing we would never get through all the eggs ourselves, my middle daughter and I made a sign saying ‘Free Range eggs for sale’ and duly stuck it up outside our house.

We have had no shortage of buyers. We don’t even need to put out a sign anymore. People just come.

Last night I have had my thoughts focussed on my chooks by the Channel Four programme Hugh’s Chicken Run.  Hugh Fernley-Whitingstall does an experiment where he sets out to recreate the conditions of caged chicken farming, alongside a free range experience to see what difference it makes to the quality of the bird and the bird’s life.

Needless to say, the supermarkets hang themselves by their lack of co-operation in the making of the three-part documentary. Tesco, you should be ashamed of yourself.

For instance, did you know that supermarkets buy chickens from a farmer for just 3 pence? And if they don’t make a certain weight they are killed without question. Last year 45 million chickens were culled because they didn’t make the grade.

The consumers and chickens themselves weren’t too happy either. The scenes of Hugh taking around residents from Axminister were really quite distressing. The caged chickens were kept in the dark all day and night with no space and left with just enough energy to waddle over to the feeder and water. The residents were coming out literally in tears. One hardened lady who might have felt at home more in a SS Waffen guard’s uniform said she was unperturbed from the sight, as buying cheap meat was the price these chickens had to pay. She appeared to have no conscience at all, even though her son was sobbing.

So a campaign has been started to ban caged chickens from our shops and replace it with more humane free range chickens. The ones which had the freedom to roam looked healthier, happier, and more interestingly, less bored. They were given footballs and CDs to play with which seems comical, but made a difference to them.

All this has made me think about our own chickens. Yes, we have made the mistake of allowing our children to give the chickens names, but remember these are layers not eaters. But with the recent Bird Flu outbreak and us just being in exclusion zone it has been challenging time. We have noticed how distressing it has been for them to be locked up for weeks on end, complying to DEFRA’s directives. We have seen their feathers drop out and look less spritely.

The other thing we have noticed is that chickens lay, on average, six eggs a week, which means they take one day off to rest. How religious of them!  To quote the farmer in the film Chicken Run, “I tell yer, them chickens,they’re organised!”

The Bible says we have a responsibility to be good stewards of the earth and its resources. Cheap price or convenience should never be used as excuses to allow inhuman methods of farming. It betrays a lot about our own moral state and spiritual decline. As Christians we have a responsibility to care for all of creation.

I hope you get behind Hugh and the campaign. Please do your bit.

ASD

In Search of Perfection

I’d be a big fibber if I told you I didn’t like good food. The trouble is I’ve got a champagne taste and ginger pop money. Nevertheless, it doesn’t stop me from enjoying the foodie programmes and the odd culinary indulgence.

On Monday I watched Nigella Lawson do her goddess thing by suggesting that whatever you find in your fridge you can do something amazing with it. Unfortunately, when she opened her fridge it had little resemblance to mine.  I am happy for her that she “never gets fazed with doing impromptu entertaining for guests that drop in” But for me she is hardly the people’s cook.

I suspect that crown belongs to affable Essex boy Jamie Oliver, a crown once worn by Delia Smith and Marguerite Pattern. And he does turn out a good book of recipes. His programme is also currently on and called Jamie’s Garden. Worth a watch. Though the graphics are dead annoying.

But the guy I personally like knocking up something in the kitchen is Heston Blumenthal, or as Terry Wogan calls him, “Heston Bloomin’ ‘eck”.. His new  programme is on Tuesdays, BBC2 and called In Search of Perfection.

The man is a genius.

He has been described as the man who got lost on the way to the science lab and found himself in the kitchen.

Last night saw him go in search of the perfect burger. He scours the world, tests beef for the perfect tissue texture, blends, wraps, freezes, calculates bite size, experiments with elasticity, and emulsifies proteins and fats with sodium citrate. Dontcha just want one now?

The problem is a burger is a burger. It is a fast-food experience. So all this effort would seem slightly contradictory.

Being a perfectionist is a blessing and a curse. At worse, it makes you intolerant of someone who is less able than you and becomes a nightmare for all people around. At best, it means that you are driven to give the best experience possible and aspires others to aim higher for themselves.

As a church pastor, and being prone to perfectionism, I have really had to get my head together on this one.

Although perfectionism is admired, much like Heston’s wizardry, it can also have the adverse effect of putting people off from even picking up a ladle in the kitchen for a fear of anything they do will not be good enough. Yet, we value good cooking, because the pay off is so rewarding.

In church terms, the leader is not there to be the master chef. That title belongs to Jesus.Our Bibles all say he is the only perfect one that has ever lived. Perfectionism implies that weakness or deficiency is not allowed. So perhaps the ism in perfectionism needs to be tackled as a condition or disease.

To be in search of the perfect is not bad, as we all aspire to be better people, but to claim we have got it perhaps is another thing.

The problem is we can find it hard to see anyone who can do the job as well or better.  Our defence against this condition is to continually humble ourselves before the Perfect One. By default, our own unworthiness will appear and pride will dissipate.

The job of any leader is to encourage new Christians to feel that anyone can do what we can do. That means lowering the bar so everyone can jump over.

Otherwise, how will we ever grow our churches? The Anglican Church talks famously about the "priesthood of all believers". In the Vineyard we say "everybody gets to play!" It all the means the same. Like food, ministry needs to be democratised and not made to be an elite activity.

Something to chew over.

ASD