Picking and Process

As a ritual, I called our neighbor, near Quiet Rest from our home in Florida, to ask if she would like me to bring some fresh citrus when I arrived.  They love the grapefruit and oranges grown in Southwest Florida. To my surprise, this time she said no but would love some good tomatoes. I told her, when delivering the vine ripped beauties that thirty years ago, upon just moving to the west coast of Florida a neighbor introduced me to "U-Pick" berry and tomato picking, which is basically a do-it-yourself picking and harvesting of winter’s best bounty. My first "picking" experience was with tomatoes and from then on Betty has know where to get the best winter tomatoes, anywhere.

Now with all the super-centers and grocery stores on every corner of every street, why in the world would we be so attracted to the inconvenience of going out and picking fruit for ourselves? Why would I seek out a farm inevitably with muddy sand for tomatoes?

Well when I’m out in those fields in Florida and my own garden here in North Carolina, I’m connected to the process that goes into harvesting food. It is my knees and back that began to ache from bending over, my hands that are get tight with arthritis and occasionally encounter a stinging or biting insect of one kind or another. I have become a deeply aware of my own tendency to take for granted the food that sits there waiting for me on the over-filled grocery shelves. In searching for just the right berries or vegetables, I have become connected to a part of the journey that my food takes to get to me. I think of all the people who labor on my behalf so that I might enjoy the beautiful produce. Going out and picking reminds me of the importance of the process and not simply the end product.  

As I shared my experience with my dear neighbor and friend, she nodding, said she knew exactly what I meant.  She went on to tell me her story of her family growing fields of tomatoes, fifty years ago, as a way to provide finances when work was hard to find. What an amazingly, interesting personal story she shared with me!

I have been reminded of a poem entitled: "Every Piece of Fruit" by Alison Luterman: "Strawberries are too delicate to be picked by machine. The perfectly ripe ones even bruise at too heavy a human touch. Every strawberry she had ever eaten—every piece of fruit—had been picked by calloused human hands. Every piece of toast with jelly represented someone's knees, someone's aching back and hips, someone with a bandanna on her wrist to wipe away the sweat."

Despite all appearances to the contrary, food doesn't arrive at the super-centers and grocery stores without the hard work of multiple laborers forming the chain in a vital process. Picking reminds me of this simple, yet profound truth. The ease of convenience, I’m afraid, may delude my children and grandchildren into valuing the end and not the means, of caring only for the product and not the process.

The busyness and commitment to convenience, I believe, can keep me from engaging in vital processes that informs me of my beginning and guides me to my end, just as they contribute to a general amnesia about what it takes to put food on my table. At my peril, I’ve found that consumer conveniences have often severed me from my vital connections; I’ve too often forgotten from whence I have come and to where I’m trying to get to. I’ve looked for the quick fix or the short-cut to the end goal, rather than journeying through many arduous processes essential to my growth and development as an unique individual.

It makes me cry out for mercy when I see folks of faith, my age, often wish for and reaching out for the easy way or the convenience of the "super-center" for spiritual growth. I now understand Jesus's frequent use of agricultural imagery. Some of the most beloved images from Jesus's conversations with his disciples evoke the vine and branches from grapevines and vineyards that likely filled the landscape of first century Israel. Growing grapes requires three years to establish a grape planting. Yet, even during the third season, only a limited harvest may be expected from the vines. The first full crop normally takes between four to five years.

Perhaps this knowledge can give new insight into His words: I am the vine; you are the branches...Remain in me, and I will remain in you...no branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine...remain in my love...I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last.  The spiritual life, like my development as a human being, is about the process. Just as in farming, much of that process involves watching and waiting, tilling and cultivating the land, even getting dirt under my finger nails or suffering the wounds inflicted by a thorn or wasp. There are no short cuts for a bountiful harvest.