THE MULTICULTURAL CHOOKYARD

In the light of the relentless incidences of racial, ethnic and religious tension and persecution around the globe, I had to smile the other day when I dropped off my food scraps to my friend’s chooks. No sooner had the peelings hit the ground and the chooks were foraging, what should stroll up and join them for breakfast, in broad daylight no less, but a female possum.

I made a rather stern suggestion that she get lost, only to discover she is actually blind and pregnant and has been hanging round for months gleaning what she can from the pickings delivered by friends and neighbours. The chooks appear to tolerate her presence quite well, and don’t seem the least perturbed at sharing either their home or their food.

Presumably without the presence of a developed brain which can reason and calculate all manner of other clever things, here were two very disparate species content to live side by side, sharing space and resources without feeling the need to dominate or drive the other away. We humans on the other hand, with so much resource and knowledge and reasoning power, seem hell bent on erecting barriers, excluding what is unknown and therefore a supposed threat, challenging those who don’t see eye to eye with us, and avoiding those who look different, dress different, talk different, smell different, worship different, and whatever else it might be that prevents us seeing beyond what for us is an obstacle.

True, the possum was blind, but she was still very aware she was on someone else’s turf, and no doubt thankful for permission to stay without fear of eviction. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt us to be blind once in a while to the differences we see in others, and given the chance to rub shoulders a little more closely with those we feel awkward with or threatened by, we might actually discover in the process that real people are involved here, and that the awkwardness and suspicion they may also feel can be overcome and have a positive outcome.

And not just tolerance of each other, but a better understanding and a willingness to be open to something and someone outside our normal sphere of what is comfortable.

To steal a line from Elvis, we can’t go on together with suspicious minds. And another from the Bible, where the way a nation and its people treat their widows, orphans and aliens is the measure by which they are judged. It doesn't take much to extrapolate that into the current equivalent of widows, single parents, homeless kids, neglected kids, refugees, victims of every persuasion.

If a few chooks can take a blind pregnant possum under their wing, then surely we're capable of the same.