Monday, December 10, 2012

The Turkey Commissioned by God

I wish I knew where the turkey grew up....Had God put His finger on her on the sun-baked grasslands of the Midwest? In a long and low silver barn with countless cousins? In the chicken house of a local Amish family?

Perhaps it's best to not know.  At any rate, we first crossed paths in the kitchen cooler of a nursing home, when I plucked her, dressed in a cardboard box, off the stack of other turkeys in cardboard boxes.

Although there couldn't be anyone on earth less likely to cook a whole turkey than me, I was ridiculously pleased to find out that I was getting a turkey from the company at Thanksgiving.  I never really considered keeping it, although my aunt offered to smoke it for me.  

"I'll give it to Mary," I decided.  The turkey that God had called was next transported to the small refrigerator freezer outside my apartment door.

My friend Mary, who reminds me of Scarlett's Mammy from Gone with the Wind, is a great friend of mine.  Our bonds grew closer in the summer of 2011 when we made weekly trips to the Elkhart County Jail to visit her granddaughter, also a friend of mine.  The granddaughter complained about the food in jail, and wished for Mary's home cooking.   There was that day when they released her and we went to pick her up, greatly pregnant, but a free woman. We took her home, where Mary had a feast spread over the kitchen.  

Having lavish amounts of appropriate food is very critical to Mary's self-image. 

On my next trip to Elkhart, the turkey went with me in my blue Ford Focus, and then in my arms, up Mary's front steps.  

I knocked.  No one answered. 

After several dispiriting minutes, I went back to my car, and dropped the turkey, still boxed, back on the seat.  I was sure I would find an owner for it, but it didn't seem as fun anymore. 

I had started my car, when Michael, another grandson, stuck his head out of the front door.  

I shut my car off and mounted the steps again, box in hand.  

Mary met me with great cheer and invited me in as if she didn't have a care in the world. 

"I brought you a turkey, Mary," I said.  "Would you like one?" 

For perhaps the only time in her life, Mary was speechless. 

"Do you....like turkey?" I asked hesitantly.  

When she regained her voice, Mary began to tell me how she had been worried all week about not having a turkey for Thanksgiving. 

How she had asked her grandchildren if any of them get turkeys at their workplaces, and they had said "no". 

How she had called her daughter in Oklahoma to see if they could pay for a turkey in Oklahoma and she could pick it up in Elkhart. But there were no Kroger or Meijer stores in Oklahoma.

How her grandson had told her that the Salvation Army was handing out Thanksgiving baskets and had suggested she get one. "That's for people who don't have food," she told him.  "We have food. We just don't have a turkey."  

How she had decided that they just wouldn't have a turkey this Thanksgiving...yet how she felt that God would provide one in the end. 

How, as a last resort, she called her brother for money.  How, at the moment that I was pounding cheerlessly on her door, she was on the phone with him, asking him to help her buy a turkey. 

That's why she didn't come to the door.  

We hugged and cried and screamed, and our joy was neither black nor white, neither young nor old, but something entirely unearthly, because the turkey reminded us both: "God is with you."

It was still in the box, so I opened the top flap.  To show her there actually was a turkey in there. 

"That's a turkey!" she said. The old Mary was back. "This turkey is from God! I don't care who tells me anything different, I know this turkey is from God!"  

I couldn't agree more.  The turkey had clearly been hand-picked by God and sent via a network of freezers and delivery trucks, to sit on Mary's Thanksgiving table.

I was as excited to be one of the delivery people as she was to be the recipient.  

Maybe God will need you to deliver something to someone for Christmas?  It's an awesome job.