Night of the Nuggets: Chapter 27 to 28
The Amazing Miss Pearl—Helping to Make the World Better for Chickens and People
This week we are beginning a look at “a book in a book” which will be published separately from but still contained within Night of the Nuggets. Pearl and I have worked on this together for quite a long time. We hope you will enjoy these and the following chapters. We also hope you will see familiar things in a new way from a chicken’s perspective. With today being Good Friday, we hope you will find them particularly inspiring!
Special Note: This chapter and following chapters contain all of the exact words spoken by Pearl to the workers in the main factory of The Chicken Nugget Syndicate when recounting her adventure to Nate for him to write down,
My name is Pearl, and I am a little white hen. Someone else is writing this down for me because when I write, it looks like chicken scratching, and you’d never be able to read it.
But even someone who can’t read can enjoy looking at my curious hats made from things that blow out of the trash truck on Trash Truck Tuesdays. Other things used to make them are brought to me by the songbirds of The Living Library.
What I have to say needs to be able to be read by as many birds and people as possible. You see, like me, you are creatures of the miraculously magical. That is because you have been hatched or born, which are both miraculous journeys for coming into this world of ours. Ask any baby bird, and it will tell you because it remembers breaking out of its original shell and hatching from an egg. That is just about the most miraculous thing that can happen to a living creature.
But this miraculous entry into the world does not protect us from what is already happening in the world when we arrive. There is a war going on around us, a war between The Good and The Evil. Our beautiful world which was designed and created for us is being invaded by creatures conjured up through self-seeking wishes and magic incantations, and they want only to destroy us and occupy our world.
These Shadowy Specters are difficult to spot, but I have trained my eyes to see them and their devious attacks.
Perhaps you have seen things that appeared to “come and go” like leaves on the ground or food in a bowl. These events happen in the corners of your eyes, the faint regions of your vision where your attention is not focused, and things which were not there appear suddenly or disappear just as suddenly. This is what some call “The Shadow World,” but I also to call it “The Mirror World” because I’ve found that a mirror is a good tool for studying it.
These creatures will try to slip a picture into your mind of something that you will imagine that you want. This is the oldest trick in the world. The picture will be what you think you truly need to be happy with a life that is complete—almost as if you were God and needed nothing. It will all be a deception and a lie to ensnare you. As long as the Shadowy Specters have you loving the pictures planted in your mind, they can become stronger. Then, slowly they will begin to exist in this real world of flesh and blood through you.
It is ultimately up to each person to refuse these images and the lies they are built upon. But I have a talent for making quite memorable and curious hats—or so people and other chickens tell me. I simply enjoy making hats and sometimes costumes to go with them. Some are funny, but all are serious and intended to chase the dangerous lying pictures away and replace them with honest, truthful pictures of The Great Gardener’s Son.
It is very possible that some dangerous lying pictures have crept into the minds of those who work here for the Chicken Nugget Syndicate. I don’t intend to scare you, but this place feels like a battlefield between The Good and The Evil. Even your own words support this. These Chicken Nuggets are fake food, they are lies pumped full of chemicals to dissolve the bones and enhance the flavor. This is not what The Great Gardener’s Son intended for People or for Chickens!
This next chapter has an illustration that summarizes all that Pearl and the other chickens hold dear about The Great Gardener’s Son. Pearl explains much more about it and why it is so significant to her and the other chickens. It is likely not the same as the Sunday School pictures you likely have seen of Jesus, but this is the Jesus, The Great Gardener’s Son, who Loves everyone purely and unconditionally.
Special Note: This chapter contain all of the exact words spoken by Pearl to the workers in the main factory of The Chicken Nugget Syndicate.
Before I share with you the hats I created for teaching about Our Great Gardener’s Son, please allow me to share with you His own hat that we chickens know him by. I did not make this hat that I am holding up for you to see now, but it is the most perfect hat for him. We always watch and wait for this hat.
It is a simple hat made of straw woven together, and it has a simple brown, or sometimes black, cloth band around it. Of all the hats he might have chosen, it is the one that suits him best because although it is humble and certainly inexpensive, he wears it as if it were a crown of gold and jewels.
I have seen him wearing this hat when he comes to check on us and to make sure that we have what we need for food and water. He also checks to make sure we have safety and shelter. It is a hat that we like because it is made from straw, which is what we chickens use to build our nests or simply to sit on to feel warm and comfortable. His hat connects him to us, just as his gentle hands connect him to people.
Even the brown band around his hat reminds us of the brown on our feathers and the brown on our eggs. We are also reminded of the brown of the earth beneath our feet, from which our food grows and through which earthworms squirm.
We will also see him wearing this hat when he comes to take one of us away with him to a place where we will know no more pain or sorrow, only the joy of being in his presence. Those of us who are left behind are saddened, but we are also gladdened when those among us are no longer troubled by pain and discomfort.
That is what happened on the day my best friend, Blanche, left us. It was an Easter Sunday morning, and as her body became still, he reached in, picked her up and held her to his chest. She looked up at him with love in her eyes, nodded, and then they were gone.
I stayed with her body because she looked as if she had just fallen asleep, but that didn’t seem possible because she had been sick for so long.
When Nate, our Gardener, came home, he found a perfect spot for her under the camellias that we all enjoy.
We knew she was with The Great Gardener’s Son, and truly, what more could any chicken or person ever want beyond that?
But I do miss Blanche so much. Some days I stand at the top of the chicken ladder and call for her to come home because the loneliness hurts so deeply.
I get lonely and try sitting on my eggs to help them hatch, but they never do. Nate says it’s because the city won’t let him have a rooster but roosters aren’t very friendly. I just want someone to love. That’s all.
As you can see, it is a handsome hat that looks quite impressive with his beard and brown suspenders. We chickens love this hat. It would be just like him to take it off his head and offer it to one of us as a cozy nest because that’s simply how he is—always caring for the lowest of the low like he is a servant. I also imagine that after we have laid our eggs in his hat and kept them warm, he would expectantly wait with us for them to hatch.
He would treat them as if they were his own, and truly they would be his own since we are all, every one of us, his own. He does the same for people who are born instead of being hatched. How that happens with people is a mystery to me, but it’s no more a mystery than hatching from an egg. Both are quite miraculous in their own way.
I am sure that for some of you, this is not exactly the picture you hold in your head of the Great Gardener’s Son. It is not my purpose to make you change your picture—only to perhaps enhance the picture you hold in your head and help you to hold it in your heart as well. This is a far more important job for me than anything else I might do.
What people think about The Great Gardener’s Son is probably more significant for them than anything else.
I’ve told you a great deal about Him from a chicken’s perspective. Just as I began this book with who I am, let’s now look at who The Great Gardener’s Son says he is, even though many people wanted him to say something different.
Your feedback is incredibly important to this project. Please take a few moments to answer these poll questions. If you have any comments or suggestions, just let us know! Use either the comment section on Substack or email us at john.spiers@yahoo.com. You can even use the Contact Us Form found at the bottom of Pearl’s special website: My Girl Pearl
We will appreciate whatever you have to share with us!
This question was asked because we expect this book to have readers from grade 4 up through the middle school grades and even adults. Additionally, readers are likely to have a range of different experiences from being unchurched to devoted Bible students.
This question was asked because the main book titled “The Night of the Nuggets” is a Mystery or Action and Adventure Book while “The IAM Promises” is a Devotional Book. These are two different book genres not normally found together.
Until Next Time…
We appreciate you very much! Thank you for reading,
John, Gracie, Bessie, Pearl, Blanche, Emily, and Amelia