The sun rises…warming our backs…as time, at least for the morning, draws to a slower pace. The berries glisten in the sun the colors from white to pink to almost black and everything in between.
A baby cries in the distance, children laugh across the patch, I see grandparents moving between the rows with an experienced gait. We slowly move along our row, picking our way. Mind moves around from here to there as hands methodically pick the black ones and eyes rove around looking for the next ripe bit of sweetness to add to the growing baskets.
Somehow we have lost the simplicity of gathering our food. The simple pleasures of being outside…. no electronics, not much noise…just listening to the birds, to the outdoors, to the cries of praise that Creation sings forth. Too often we are too busy to soak in these moments, these times. Baskets full, in sister camaraderie we walk away from the patch, arms full of berries, walking back into our world of bustling business.
But I saw something today in the blackberry patch…a symbolism of us. There were lots of them and I’m going to try to link them together…we’ll see if they can go from mind to paper as smoothly as the thoughts were straying around this morning.
I saw people as the blackberry bushes. Each one of us a bush. Each one capable of producing fruit. I thought of the cycle of the berries that we were so eagerly after. They begin a small little white flower, attached to the “vine”. And as I heard one of the children squeal “There is a bee!” I was reminded how it takes the bee to produce the fruit. And here we are…attached to the vine and as the Spirit fills us, we are to produce the fruits of the Spirit….
As I walked away from the patch this morning my prayer was that the Holy Spirit would have a good fruit within me. The fruit that brings my Gardener happiness and pleasure and that it would be a bountiful harvest for all those around me to enjoy.
~Tera
A baby cries in the distance, children laugh across the patch, I see grandparents moving between the rows with an experienced gait. We slowly move along our row, picking our way. Mind moves around from here to there as hands methodically pick the black ones and eyes rove around looking for the next ripe bit of sweetness to add to the growing baskets.
Somehow we have lost the simplicity of gathering our food. The simple pleasures of being outside…. no electronics, not much noise…just listening to the birds, to the outdoors, to the cries of praise that Creation sings forth. Too often we are too busy to soak in these moments, these times. Baskets full, in sister camaraderie we walk away from the patch, arms full of berries, walking back into our world of bustling business.
But I saw something today in the blackberry patch…a symbolism of us. There were lots of them and I’m going to try to link them together…we’ll see if they can go from mind to paper as smoothly as the thoughts were straying around this morning.
I saw people as the blackberry bushes. Each one of us a bush. Each one capable of producing fruit. I thought of the cycle of the berries that we were so eagerly after. They begin a small little white flower, attached to the “vine”. And as I heard one of the children squeal “There is a bee!” I was reminded how it takes the bee to produce the fruit. And here we are…attached to the vine and as the Spirit fills us, we are to produce the fruits of the Spirit….
Love. Joy. Peace. Longsuffering. Gentleness. Goodness. Faith. Meekness. Temperance.
And just as the child squeals about the bee, we squeal about the trials that are actually necessary to bring about the fruit. And yet, with patience the fruit is brought forth. Small and greenish, white to all shades of pink, until finally we can offer the full sweetness of the ripeness of the fruit that the Sweet Spirit grew in us. And as I saw each of us as a bush, the various types of fruit are all at different stages forming within each one of us. I peeked under a leaf and saw a whole cluster of berries, ripe and perfect, and I am reminded yet again, that we aren’t to hide our lights. With the Spirit dwelling within these mortal temples we all have fruit to be offered and hiding it under the leaves or under shyness or pride or excuses or whatever our “leaf” is, doesn’t really bring the Gardener of our heart glory. For it is in the final fruits that the Gardener is praised the most.
As I walked away from the patch this morning my prayer was that the Holy Spirit would have a good fruit within me. The fruit that brings my Gardener happiness and pleasure and that it would be a bountiful harvest for all those around me to enjoy.
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