Goodbye Cherry Tomatoes

Garden Update

I've picked cherry tomatoes till I'm tired of picking them. Some weeks I'd pick a gallon of them every other day. Although I remember picking cherry tomatoes as late as November last year. This year once the lower clusters ripened and were picked. The clusters ripened in turn following up the plant. Once only the tops were left the lower half of the plants began to wilt and yellow. Having picked another pint today I plucked up all twelve plants out of the garden. I also got rid of the last of my zucchini plants. Most of the cucumbers had died back as well, so they got tossed too.

I pruned my Heatwave Tomatoes back and liberally applied fungicide to all the tomatoes, which seems to have helped the blight problem. I transplanted the remaining jalapeños out of the way. I planted about a 12' x 12' square of Merit corn on four rows at the end of the garden. I'm planting about half a row of Blue Lake pole beans and a half row of speckled butter beans. This isn't a fall garden being that it will be ready for picking late August, but I planted my garden in early March this year before the last frost. I plan on replanting again in August for the fall with other vegetables. It's been fun but also a lot of work.

Grace Where It's Needed Most

I've been so excited to catch up with some old friends these past few weeks, but I'm sort of heartbroken by the heartaches that many have gone through. Why are those most in need of grace kicked when they're down? When given glaring opportunities to be "Christ-like," why have so many thrown rocks instead? There are few things that boil my blood as much as self-righteousness and downright meanness. I've been so disappointed to find that the most religious people I've caught up with have been the most distant, cold, and aloof, and I've spent the last 10 years in the church for crying out loud! Without fail the first question is where are you pastoring? where did you preach last Sunday? are you going to church anywhere? followed by bewilderment and suggestions of places I should try. Are these really the things that matter most? Is this how we value people and size them up, by their church attendance?

I ran into an old friend I used to work with years ago today. It was so good to see him. It was good to hear his story. It was good to feel like nothing has changed between us although we hadn't seen each other since God knows when. I turned to leave when he asked me, "are you still preaching?" I may have surprised myself as much as him when I turned back and replied without hesitation, "No man, I quit." A short conversation followed to explain what I meant. I've had a lot of those conversations. Funny, how those who aren't dyed in the wool are so willing and eager to talk about spiritual things. I haven't asked one person about where they go to church and what they believe. They've been all too free to offer the information, wanting to talk with someone who understands where they're coming from.

I'm slowly beginning to float to the surface of this deep sea of questions I've been sinking in. I'm beginning to see some semblance of a real world faith emerge before me that I can embrace and live. One conversation after another, a view of the mission is coming into focus. If Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles, the outsiders, is it too presumptuous of me to ask God to let me be like Jesus, a friend of sinners, and I chief among them?

Marking Time

I'm sure you've heard as many theories offered as I have for what Jesus wrote in the dirt that day that drove away the accusers of a woman caught in adultery. One of the more popular beliefs is that Jesus began writing out specific sins of her accusers. I think there is a certain danger in reading into scripture what's not there. Too much of it has already been meddled with thru the years from copy to copy. It seems many people struggle to grasp the simple humanity of Jesus and find it hard to believe he could have lived his life as a mere man.

Can you imagine all of the shrines, the denominations, the religious relics that would have been built around the drawing of Jesus in the sand had it only been recorded? I'm glad it was trampled on. Too much of religious tradition focuses on the "what" and not the "why." I believe the intent and the spirit of what could be holy has been lost on making sure we get it just right. I think it was Rob Bell who suggested in his book Velvet Elvis that by writing in the dirt Jesus was simply "marking time." It afforded time for cooler heads to prevail and simple words to disarm self-righteousness, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her."

"Marking time" is a good description for these hot Louisiana summer days. Aside from a few grueling road trips to Florida for work. Time is dragging on slowly and lazily with all of us around the house for a change. We've been "passing the time" reading, playing, watching movies, and picking vegetables from our garden. We've been tracking down old friends on the internet, and I've been doing much neglected work on my family tree searching for memories and discovering old stories.

I am keenly aware of what time it is, what time it has been. I know that these hot summer days are elusive as the sand, and fall will wash them out to sea for another year. I know that these footprints pressed into Florida sand by feet five years and counting were gone by morning. I know that in time I will be a name and dates on some one's forgotten limb.

We hear too much of "wars and rumors of wars" these days. The powers that be have given us a new "hill on which to die," yet another ideological struggle that spills every one's blood but their own. These battles aren't waged on mountains but on piles of sand, and the tide is coming. Life isn't about being right. It's about being together. So we wait... marking time, making memories together.

Love and Duty

The Painted Veil with Naomi Watts and Edward Norton is a powerful story of love unreturned, love betrayed, love rejected, love scorned, love demonstrated, love made, and love lost. Kitty (Naomi Watts) opts to marry Dr. Walter Fane (Edward Norton), even though she doesn't love him, just to get as far away from her mother as she can. The new bride far from home in China has an affair with an Englishman. When their secret is discovered, her husband gives the ultimatum to join him in the heart of a cholera epidemic deep in China or immediate divorce for adultery. Rejected by her lover she finds herself cut off from the rest of the world in the midst of enormous human suffering where their relationship is tested to the breaking point.

I find the parallels between romantic love and religous devotion unending. Consider the following exchange between the head of the convent and Mrs. Fane (Naomi Watts):

Mother Superior: Dr. Fane told me he wanted you to leave but you would not.
Mrs. Fane: I didn't want to leave you.
Mother Superior: Yes, and we appreciate it, dear child, but I think you did not want to leave him either.
Mrs. Fane: Well, it's my duty.
Mother Superior: Duty is only washing your hands when they are dirty.

Mother Superior: I fell in love when I was 17... with God. A foolish girl with romantic notions about the life of a religious, but my love was passionate. Over the years my feelings have changed. He's disappointed me. Ignored me. We've settled into a life of peaceful indifference. The old husband and wife who sit side by side on the sofa, but rarely speak. He knows I'll never leave Him. This is my duty. But when love and duty are one, then grace is within you.

Many people stay married for no better reason than they have for going to church, a sense of duty or obligation. Obligatory church attendance holds about as much passion as an arranged marriage. I have also lost respect for people who stay married till "death do us part." I respect most those who stay in love, who work at love, who make love. I know many people who just live under the same roof, though they merit some recognition for not killing each other, but their love is unspoken, unexpressed, and maybe absent altogether. Those are not the kinds of relationships we should aspire to nor settle for.

The Bible is not a rule book, nor a list of doctrines. It is above all else a love story between the Creator and the created. While God's love may be the one constant in the universe, we are reminded throughout that our love is frail. We must "catch the little foxes that ruin the vineyards," for "the love of many will grow cold." We must be passionate in our love making and our praying.

We make an effort to grow in love every day not because we have to, but because we want to. This is not a place we have to be. It is the place that we want to be and this is the one we want to be with. Then love and duty are one, and there we find grace.