Accepting My Place among the Pork Rinds
Day 12– September 2, 2018
By Tony Tench
When I was in college I spent three of the summers working in a meat packing plant in order to save money for books and such. The pace of the packing house is nothing but hard work. You can just imagine dealing with cattle and hogs – every job is a heavy-lifting job. Ten-hour days resulted in tired muscles that ached all night causing me to dream about the work that caused those muscles to ache. I worked there because that was the work available and I needed to work. And, while I learned a lot of lessons working there, I never have said I liked it.
Even so, as rough as it was, I was actually sort of proud to be working there. I was because, of all my cousins, I was the only one of them to work in the packing house where my grandfather had worked for forty-four years. I pretty much wore that as a badge of honor and especially on days when he’d come by and I would see the old-hats treat him like a rock star coming by to shake his hand. I had been taught my whole life that you work hard at what you’re given to do. I had watched Papaw walk to the packing house every day (he never did learn to drive a car) and I knew his reputation of out-working everyone in the room until he finally hung up his knives. So, I was particularly proud when those old-hats that knew him referred to me as “Little George.” They wouldn’t have called me by his name if I’d been holding back. But, in that environment, that was the one thing I could do well, work hard. So, I did.
My job one summer was in the “hog cut” on the dis-assembly line. I had to box up spare ribs into the 30-pound boxes and stack the skids full while simultaneously boxing up pork rinds into 85-pound boxes as they were being shaved off the bellies. Yeah, 85 pound boxes all day long. I could barely do it but I would not give up – that much I could do – grunt and push and sweat – work hard.
What I would also do, though, was to marvel at the guys on the line who were working the big knives pulling loins and ribs out of the pork sides. Now, granted, these guys were huge and their arms were the size of my legs, but still they pulled those loins and ribs out with such ease that I was amazed. Not to mention they were NOT lifting boxes all day, and I sort of wanted to be up there where they were! A little bit of covetousness on the disassembly line!
Little by little as I got to know those fellas I asked one of them about what it was like to use those pull-knives and he invited me to step up there beside him, when the supervisor was out of the room, and he’d give me a shot at it. So, I was excited because they did it with such flare and I was going to do so as well. I just knew I could be as smooth as they were with those blades. I took that loin knife out of the hot water and reached up there to pull and I couldn’t even budge it through that meat. Then, with the rib knife I was too deep and then not deep enough. Those big guys had to almost push me aside so they could make the pulls so as not to bog down the line.
I learned an important lesson there. As much as I’d like to think I can do a thing better than I see someone else doing it that doesn’t mean that I can outshine them OR that I can even do it at all. In other words, it’s best to be content in the strengths we possess and the charge given to us and then to be respectful and thankful for the ways others live out their strengths. The point is not for me to be able to do or be what I see in someone else. Rather, it is for me to be the person God has fitted me to be.
So, back to the pork rinds I went. And, I was glad to know I could contribute because, if nothing else, I knew how to work hard. Thus, I returned to heaving and shoving those boxes onto skids. (Side note: I don’t eat pork rinds today. Even if they are found on the chip aisle in a light and fluffy bag, they started out on a hog’s belly and they like to have broken my back!)
In the life of the church, God has gifted each of us uniquely for the good of the ministry of the church and for his glory. Let’s be praying that we will be obedient to the charge he places upon our lives and thankful for the ways he is at work in the lives of our brothers and sisters in Christ. This life together requires that each of us be the person God gifts us to be so that, in community, we become what he wants the church to be.
After all, as Peter wrote to the early church, “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” (1 Peter 4:10)