In the early years of my childhood, my family lived for a short time on a poultry farm in Bandırma. Hens wandered freely, unconfined. The contours of that land have long since changed, replaced by refrigerated depots and industrial freezers that hum along the highways, the relentless march of capital. In the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, Jesus laments: “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing.” These days, I find myself returning to the image of the mother hen—a figure who embodies a special wisdom that is seldom named, yet deeply and instinctively known.
Although I did not have a religious upbringing, I grew up embracing aspects of many faiths. My spiritual background is Alevi, and after inviting the Presbyterian faith into my life following my marriage, I find these layered identities influence each other in ways that are both intricate and transformative. In her sermon Who Is Jesus? Mother Hen, Reverend Agnes Norfleet lingers on the vulnerability of the mother hen metaphor, questioning what strength a hen can possibly offer in the face of the fox—Herod—and, more broadly, in the face of violence at large. Reverend Norfleet asks why Jesus does not invoke a more forceful or fiercer maternal figure—a lion, perhaps, or a bear? What does this choice imply for our activism and understandings of leadership? What unique wisdom does the mother hen offer?
Continue reading “As a Hen Gathers by Elanur Williams”
Feminism and Religion 