The chickens and guineas were unusually loud and perturbed. I walked to the end of the house to see what the ruckus was about and saw Amos, are small feist dog, circling the pen and sniffing the edges. I shooed him away. The last thing we needed was another dog who acquired a taste for chicken.

I went back into the new house and worked on cabinets. Then, I heard the same ruckus coming from the chicken pen, except this time the rooster was even louder. Surely Amos wasn’t back over there harassing them again.

As I snuck around the corner, there was Amos with a mouthful of white chicken feathers, inside the chicken pen, chasing the rooster around in circles. All the hens and guineas were in the chicken house on the highest roost pole, hiding from the pesky dog.

“Amos!” I yelled. “Get outta that pen! What in the world is the matter with you?”

The dog melted. He fell over on his back, feet up in the air, and knew he’d been caught. As I got closer to the pen, all the other birds flew down and began walking around the subdued dog, almost in a mocking manner like, “Hehe, you got caught. Mom’s here now and you’re in trouble.”

I reached under the chicken wire and drug Amos out—still upside down, mind you— and fussed at him. Amos hates my hat, so I took it off and whacked him on the butt as I chased him away from the pen.

Then I sat there at the picnic table and laughed at the whole scenario. There was Amos, just like many of us, caught with a mouthful of feathers, in the chicken pen. Like the old saying, Caught with your hand in the cookie jar.

Sometimes we go places and do things that we know are wrong, and just like Amos, we get caught in the pen, with a mouthful of feathers. There’s nothing we can do except flop over on our backs and accept the consequences. We know better. In fact, we have often been chased away from the pen several times, but the taste for chicken butt is just so enticing. And every time we let that bad choice win, we get caught in the pen with a mouthful of chicken feathers.

So, this week, as the family gathers together, and temptations soar high, stay out of the chicken pen. If you stay out of the pen, you won’t be tempted to chase the chicken, and you definitely won’t get caught with a wad of chicken feathers in your mouth. Stop and think. There are plenty of others places to be besides the chicken pen.