From Gross to Grace

I go to the kitchen to pull some meat off chicken bones for dinner. NOT one of my favorite tasks! The chicken is cold, there’s little bits of bone and skin that you have to be careful to get off the chicken, and I am not a detail person. But, I am a good cook, and I like to eat — aand who likes to find little grainy bits of chicken bones or pieces of cartilage in a chicken dish? So, I dutifully go about my So I dutifully set about my task.

But first, I am moved to open the windows. It’s cold in the house from the night, and the gorgeous day is begging me to enjoy it. I open these great casement windows that you crank open, and I let the warmth, the sunshine, and the sound of birds and breeze pour in.

I go back and get my chicken out, not looking forward to this distasteful task. I take the lid off my blue Le Creuset French oven — a little bit of pleasure, grace, right there, good cookware — and wow! The two chicken quarters I boiled yesterday gave off a thick layer of wonderful clear gelatinous protein base for soup. I expected watery broth, but there is none of that. Only this rich, nutritious stuff. Now I am a little more excited. The presence of that good stuff makes the work of pulling chicken off bones a bit more palatable. Now I am off to a start, thinking about what I am going to do with this glorious gelatinous goodness to serve my family a nutritious meal. Will it be simple chicken soup, or tortilla soup? Or is there something new I can think of? My family does not always find “new” to be an occasion of grace, so maybe not this time.

I get down to the nitty gritty of the chicken, separating the good from what I now think of as great. I hear the birds and the breeze, I feel the warmth and see the sun, and there I have heaven in my kitchen. God’s bounty outdoors and indoors, all for me just to enjoy — just for the paltry price of some chicken-picking.

GRACE.