The Pastor’s Piece – Kevin Cernek, FCFI Chaplain

FCFI

May 17, 2026

It’s funny some of the things that come up in an ordinary week as Pastor of a church. It’s also interesting what children pick up while sitting in church on Sunday. About a year ago, the mom of a little girl texted me and said that her four-year-old daughter wanted me to come over and do a funeral for one of her baby chicks that had died. We call ourselves “A Full Service Church” so I was ready to head over there and address the situation, but her mom called back and said had taken care of it.

In light of that, I wasn’t surprised to receive the following message a couple of weeks ago:

“Hi Kevin. We had a mouse in the living room last night. Can you come to do a service?”

“I will be there,” I replied tongue in cheek. Knowing they had small children I added, “Is there sadness all around? Put him on ice and next time we’re there we will lay him/her to rest with a proper burial.”

A couple hours later came this reply: “Oh my goodness. My exterminator’s name is Kevin too. I accidentally messaged you instead of him. I was wondering why his response was to do a burial and if there was sadness?”

She had relayed the odd message to her husband and together they figured out what had happened. We all got a good chuckle out of that.

But I have to tell you, I have no pity for mice or any other rodent for that matter. When they get in the house, they come in from outside – which I might add is where they belong. If they would just be content in their proper domain, there would be no problem. The trouble for them comes when they start interfering with us humans.

There’s a lady in our church who was using a live trap to catch mice in her garage. One day she found one in the trap and somehow when she was trying to take it outside for relocation, it bit her on the finger, got infected, and she had to go to the doctor for antibiotics (but no rabies).

One time, a friend invited me and a couple other guys over for breakfast. He made bacon and eggs and toast and pancakes. It was a delicious meal. While we were devouring it, I noticed a movement over on the counter and saw a mouse crawl out of his toaster. I didn’t see it go in so I’m assuming he probably lived in there. That was gross and still causes me to cringe even now, some 15 years later.

We probably all know what it’s like to have mice chew through wiring on a vehicle. For a while, the auto manufacturers were putting air filters in the vehicles that were peanut based. The mice loved those things and would chew, chew, chew them into big gobs of fuzz. The exterminator told me that’s what mice love to do – chew.

When I was a kid, dad filled two wire corn cribs with ear corn every year. In late summer before the new harvest came in, he would hire a guy who had a corn sheller on his truck. Back in those days, hardly anybody had a combine and everybody had corn cribs for storage. Any corn that wasn’t fed throughout the year was shelled and sold to make room for the new corn. That corn sheller was a sight to behold. It had more moving parts than any contraption you can think of. It had elevators and chains moving in every direction, rattling and shaking and squeaking away. Corn shucks were blown out from its belly in a big puff of constant air, corn cobs were elevated up and dumped in a pile while the grain was stripped off the cob, dropped though a couple of shaking sieves, and augered into a wagon.

It was mostly a fun day, except when we got to the bottom of the crib. That’s where the mice and rats lived. We would shovel and rake the corn into the drag that carried it outside to the elevator on the sheller. As we emptied the crib, the rodents would move away from us by digging deeper into the corn. When we got to the final little pile, they would jump out from all directions and run. It would have been comical if it wasn’t so scary. The dog knew they were coming and would stand there all crouched down, frozen in position, with her nose pointed straight out, waiting to pounce. There were always a few cats there too, excitedly joining in the action.

Fun times, except when they weren’t. As a little kid I remember being out there barefoot for some reason and being too little to have a rake or a shovel to chase them with. So I just stood and cried as they ran across the floor and over the top of my bare feet. I never got bit, but I sure got scared. Someone at church told me how one time, when she was doing that same thing, a mouse ran up her pant leg. She grabbed it under her clothing just before it reached her waist, and crushed it with her bare hands. Again, I cringe just thinking about it.

Mouse funerals? Yeah, I’d do them and I’d be thankful they were dead.

There’s a spiritual lesson here too: not everything that enters a space is meant to stay there, and peace requires both discernment and decisive action. A home only stays a home if it has boundaries. When something harmful or unclean gets inside, you don’t just learn to coexist with it, you deal with it so life in the house can remain healthy. That doesn’t come from anger or obsession, but from love for what the space is supposed to be. A lot of what disturbs people’s lives doesn’t announce itself as destructive at first. It slips in, settles, and starts to damage things slowly. Wisdom isn’t only about recognizing that reality, it’s about responding appropriately instead of ignoring it or minimizing it. So,  keep healthy boundaries with what doesn’t belong, and keep a light heart when chaos shows up. It helps us to live wisely in our world.

(Kevin Cernek is Lead Pastor of Martintown Community Church in Martintown, Wisconsin)