Why Stump Slung Chitlins?

According to the telephone book, we lived on Pleasant Ridge Road, a cutoff road of about six miles between Mississippi Highways 7 and 9W.  For much of my childhood, it was a gravel road and sparsely populated, particularly the eastern section running from Duke’s Mountain on.  We were so far out, you could not even see the lights from another house at night.

But we did have neighbors.  On the other side of a sizable stand of Loblolly pines and assorted hardwoods, there was an elderly couple named Buck and Mrs. Brown.  (Growing up, I didn’t know Mrs. Brown's first name, so I always referred to her by her last.)  Together they owned a general store a few miles away called “Buck Brown Store,” but most folks around there just called it “The Store.”

“The Store” was a typical general store for Mississippi in the 1960’s.  It was not only a place to buy a variety of goods, but also a social gathering spot for old white men.  When you’d go in, there were always several men sitting around in chairs and on old barrels.  Often they were playing checkers or cards.  And there was a lot of talking and laughter.  Mrs. Brown was usually there at the register, and it seemed she was always in the midst of whatever was going on.

I remember one specific occasion when the Browns invited us over for supper.  That night the main course was chitterlings.  (For those of you who may not know, chitterlings, or chitlins for short, are cooked swine intestines, pig guts.)  Of course, before you cook them, you have to clean them.  Specifically, you have to get what’s naturally inside the intestines out.  It’s my understanding that one way people used to remove the intestine contents was by slinging them up against something solid like a stump, thus the phrase “stump slung chitlins.”  Now, I don’t know how Mrs. Brown cleaned hers.  But I do seem to recall a putrid odor wafting through the woods toward our house.  I want to believe this was her boiling the chitlins outdoors, attempting to clean the last remnants of foul matter from what was to be our food. 

Now I would like to tell that the chitlins were delicious, but I wouldn’t know.  Once I found out what chitlins were, I refused to eat them.  However, everyone who did indulge seemed to greatly enjoy them.

My point in relaying this story is that when we consider chitlins in their natural state, they are nothing but the contemptible entrails of an animal the Old Testament calls “unclean.”  Yet when properly prepared, through boiling and beating them on a stump, they can become useful, edible, even a delicacy.  Likewise, in my natural state, I too am vile, but worse. Why?  Because chitlins only do what they were created to do, but that’s not true of me.  I have rebelled against my Creator.  I am a great sinner.  Consequently, my single hope is that through the Father’s merciful, painful chastisements, being stump slung so to speak, He will make me useful and conform me into the image of His Son.

- This blog post was originally posted on October 18, 2012