So, when I'm not speaking at another church, Sunday mornings are free for other activities. This past Sunday, while traditional churches were singing hymns, I worshiped in a big patch of blackberries less than 100 yards from home.The blackberries grow along the edge of an open field that our subdivision reserves as a common area, with woods behind. I've been picking berries as they've ripened since mid-June, but usually just from the outer edge.
This time I left the dog at home, took my bucket and pressed through the brambles to discover a virtual blackberry cathedral on the back side. Shaded by milkweeds taller than Goliath and protected by fierce briers that grow even taller, the thorny blackberries offer a challenge in line with the commensurate reward of eating them.
As I bent and twisted and occasionally knelt to get at the ripe berries, I was accompanied only by bejeweled June bugs and Japanese beetles, along with an assortment of spiders and other small critters. A mixed choir of birds sang the anthem as I reflected on God's good gift of wild blackberries and offered a prayer of thanks.And when we went to our official church later in the day, we had fresh blackberry cobbler to share. From morning's praise to evening's plates, we were blessed, and my heart was glad.
3 comments:
I haven't picked in two years and I'm a lesser person for it.
Some of my Dad's best pastoral ministry was parrying the curses and vents of a High School principal in a tough county in the Carolinas where the School board politics were thick and personal; meaning the combatants were both vested in leadership roles in one of the larger Baptist churches in the area.
In ways that folks like Pat Conroy and Will Campbell can most appreciate, my Dad was the presence of Christ and after the pickin, there was a measure of redemption, catharsis that renewed both for the life struggles they faced and got one ready for all the politics of fall high school football and the other in mode for Fall Revival.
Stewart Newman understood, and I think you do as well.
Amen.
I must admit that when I saw the title of this post on the BT page I wondered if you would be writing about that other Blackberry. I've heard of some churches recently whose services are comprised of parishioners sending questions to the pastor (who is reading the questions off his laptop on the pulpit) using using Blackberry, palm, or other electronic devices: a give and take conversation for the digital age.
I must say that I prefer where your story went instead. We lose something when we fail to "taste and see that the Lord is good."
Mmmm, blackberries. We used to have several blackberry patches around where my parents live. Between those and the blueberry bushes at my grandparents house, cobblers were always around. (Speaking of which, you should try a sweet potato cobbler if you've never had one.)
Thank God for the little things. Maybe if we took better note of the little things, the big things wouldn't seem so big.
Post a Comment