The Mathematics of Chickens

The introduction she wrote for the moderator to announce her speech tantalized the audience:
"The next speaker will be answering a question that has been asked since time began. She has spent weeks researching the topic, and will now help solve this ancient mystery."
Then Asherel, my shy 13 year old, strode to the lectern and said,
"Why DID the chicken cross the road?"

For the next 5 minutes, she gave a thoughtful and scholarly discourse on exactly what might have tempted the chicken to cross the road. She gave some ancient philosophers' takes on the matter ( e.g. Einstein: Did the chicken cross the road, or did the road move beneath her?") She discussed the sorts of food and habits that may have induced the chicken to cross the road. She mentioned that chickens live in the here and now, with little to no attention to consequences or past successes. She noted that chickens, contrary to what you may think about the implication of their name, are really quite brave.

The coup de force was when she went to the chalkboard to show the mathematical probability of the chicken crossing the road successfully with an average car speed of 55 mph, and a maximum chicken speed of 9 mph, and an average road width. She used her research on chicken vision and when it would have first discerned the car, then the formula rate times time equals distance to calculate how long it would take the car to reach the chicken, and the same formula to determine how fast the chicken would cross the road. She showed objectively with her careful calculations that the thrill seeking chicken would cross the road safely with .2 seconds to spare.

Finally she closed her speech saying really the question was a 2 part conundrum. "Why?" is a question that has never been successfully answered. Who, what, where, and when are objective and easily dispatched, but "Why" is an elusive query that has plagued mankind since time immemorial. The second part of the question can be easily now answered: Did the chicken cross the road? Yes.

As I watched my once shy child return to her seat to laughter and applause, I thought, "She has grown up before my eyes. She is funny and sweet and kind... all of a sudden she is someone I not only love, but really really like."  This is why parenting is worth every wretched, sleep deprived, hand wringing moment. Sometimes they become even more than what you hoped.

I wonder if my heavenly Father looks down on me, and ever smiles to Himself and says, "Wow, she has transformed. I knew it would happen of course, since I know everything, but my my, it is nice to be proven right!" So much of transformation is hidden, elusive, unobserved and unexplainable until suddenly it is there. A soul has ripped across the gulf of disbelief and reached the other side, where Jesus claps and delights, as the forces that might have crushed now whiz harmlessly by.

Deuteronomy 11: 11-12
¹¹ But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven. ¹² It is a land the LORD your God cares for; the eyes of the LORD your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end.