Our Rhode Island Red hen seems to have become an international stand-in for tolerance, empathy and the plight of the refugee. She has been chased all over the place by the entrenched, well-to-do hens of the farm and their posh coop with its special light for warmth and eggs.

I see the made it up to the top run on the roost but she wouldn’t come down until the Brahmas left the coop by the side door. Politics inside the coop is very much like politics outside of the coop, fear and hate seem to be a part of the human condition, we often wish to exclude the rest of the world and close the doors behind us.

There are people who understand where hate can go intellectually and people who understand it viscerally. I am a big follower of the American Dream, I saw its power again and again in my family, and even in my own life. I will do everything I can to honor and preserve it, it is a hungry dream, it needs to be fed and nourished, again and again. If we forget it, we forget our very selves.

My own family history – and the history of many other people – cautions me to take hate seriously, my family tree lost many people to hate a half-century ago and even farther back than that. At the same time, I am hopeful, and the Red Hen is a metaphor that inspires me. Hate never wins out in the end, neither does fear. I think human decency and hope and love are far more powerful in the long run.

I wrote a metaphor about my hen, and it seems to have traveled a good bit around the world. I wish she could know that as she works to find her place in the peaceable kingdom.

I do believe that, it is not just rhetoric, so I am grateful to see the Red Hen living peaceably, pecking away by herself, practicing acceptance and patience. I plan to do the same. Reason will prevail.