Sometimes the answer seems so obvious … an old urban legend that’s been around for decades.  Almost certainly not true, but it’s a fun story. 

Scientists at NASA have developed a gun for the purpose of launching dead chickens. It is used to shoot a dead chicken at the windshield of airline jet, military jet, or the space shuttle, at that vehicle's maximum traveling velocity. The idea being, that it would simulate the frequent incidents of collisions with flying birds, and therefore determine if the windshields are strong enough to endure high-speed bird strikes.

British engineers, upon hearing of the gun, were eager to test it on the windshields of their new high-speed trains. However, upon firing the gun, the engineers watched in shock as the chicken shattered the windshield, smashed through the control console, snapped the engineer's backrest in two, and embedded itself into the back wall of the cabin.

Horrified and puzzled, the engineers sent NASA the results of the experiment, along with the designs of the windshield, and asked the NASA scientists for any suggestions.

The NASA scientists sent back a brief response: "Thaw the chicken."

Sometimes the answer seems so simple: thaw the chicken…

How come, as humans, we tend to remember the negative?  You go on a trip, have a flat tire, and that’s the part of the adventure that is told and remembered.  Everything that goes wrong…

Years ago Sally and I travelled from San Francisco to meet my parents at my grandmother’s house in Boise… up up up Donner Pass… the engine ran out of oil, the engine block was cracked… the car became instant toast.  It was an early 70's Plymouth Gold Duster that we had purchased from Elsie Miller.  We had little money… long way from home.  We tend to remember the negative…

As Christians we have a tendency to fall into our old ways, doing what once was so natural for us.  Sometimes, very rarely, I’ll have what I’ll call a flare up.  My temper might come out in a stressful situation.  For example, about 10 years ago I was working on my car trying to put a belt back on with a screw driver, in retrospect using this tool for this application may not have been the wisest decision…  When I’m working on things I am pretty low key and focused on accomplishing the task at hand.  I try my best not to lose my cool because it doesn’t help the situation or anyone I’m working with.  As I stretched the belt toward the pulley my screw driver slipped smashing my knuckle into the edge of the razor sharp pulley.  I recoiled my hand from the engine as if it just bit me.  Refusing to look at the damage I continued working on the belt set on fixing my car before tending to my wound.  Eventually I got the belt on, started the vehicle and headed inside to clean and dress my busted knuckle.  Since my hands were covered in grease I couldn’t see how bad the cut was so I knew I had to clean it.  I grabbed the bristle brush and went to town with soap and warm water powering through the excruciating pain and raised goose bumps on my neck…  In life I have found that there are 4 reasons for goose bumps; when your wife gives you a back rub, when you’ve been sunburned, when you feel the Holy Spirit, and when you’ve done something stupid that hurts really bad.  These goose bumps were the latter.  After I had gotten all of the grease out of my cut I turned around to talk to my step Mom, Penny.  From that point on I don’t know what happened because I blacked out.  I woke up sometime later with a splitting headache and gasping for air on the kitchen floor.  I didn’t know where I was and was asking Penny what had happened.  She looked down at me with a scold and asked if I was joking.  To her credit I must confess that I had cried wolf in this department for many years.  You see any time someone from our family would get home, walk into a room, or ask me a question I didn’t really want to answer I would pretend to go to sleep.  My wife just recently taught Jon-Jon, my oldest son, how to pretend to go to sleep in my honor…it’s the cutest thing.  Penny thought I was just pretending like I had so many times before.  After trying to convince my step mom that I did in fact faint and that I was not ‘joking’ I got frustrated and anger got the best of me.  Lying on the floor with my head against the cupboards I yelled the R rated version of “I’m not kidding”.  Now Penny knew that I never swore, so when she heard me cuss she knew I wasn’t kidding but that does not justify my angry response.    

If it isn’t working, you gotta do something different.  (For Rachel’s benefit: They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results). 

You’ve heard the joke, Why did Moses wander through the desert for 40 years?  Because he refused to stop and ask for directions.  you come to a dead end, go the other way.  But we keep going.  Our life goes nowhere, and we keep going, you are miserable and you don’t do anything about it.  The amazing thing in today’s scripture is that Solomon (the author of Ecc) admits he is wrong.  This is the equivalent of Solomon driving down the street, admitting he is lost, and stopping to ask for directions (gasp).  I tried pleasure, “I refused my heart no pleasure,” and it brings me no satisfaction “chasing after the wind.”  

Newsflash: you do not need to be perfect in order to be a Christian.  Having your life together at all times and being in a perfectly loving peaceful contented frame of mind is not the evidence of salvation.  Ecclesiastes is the Reality Check of the bible. If depression… frustration… boredom… apathy… grip your life, it does not mean you are lacking in faith or losing your salvation. 

One of the well known phrases from Ecc: “There is nothing new under the sun” (Ecc. 1:9).  Is a fancy way of saying, “I’m bored.”  Imagine a child confronting his mother, “Mom, I have nothing to do, There’s nothing new under the sun.”