Berry Picking
When we walked up to the parsonage, I saw that big overgrown bush pressed tight against the side of the garage, and I knew that this was the grace we had been praying for.
As a little girl, I would spend a few afternoons each week at our neighbor’s house.
This particular neighbor was named was Rose.
In the hours our parents transformed into doctors and salespeople and engineers, many of the tots on our street would stay at her big brick house on the top of the hill. And there she would care for us and our own mothers, too, whenever we stepped through her door. Before or after a long day, she tended to herds of us: praising and comforting those toting sippy cups as well as coffee mugs.
A few years older than the other mothers, now raising teenagers and leaning into menopause, Rose was a mother to everyone. Like that mother Lewis talks about, one of the great saints, one of the famed ones of the great country:
Every young man or boy that met her became her son – even if it was only the boy that brought the meat to her back door. Every girl that met her was her daughter...But her motherhood was of a different kind. Those on whom it fell went back to their natural parents loving them more… In her they became themselves.
Yes, Rose was very much like her.
We were all welcome.
However. I remember less about her back door and much more about her front yard: how it would sprawl beyond her curved driveway and into the grassy meadow beyond the black mailbox. The steep slope slowly levelled into a smooth flat plain, leading the eyes to the grand raspberry patch thrust out the middle, tall and green in the midday sun.
The very best days at Rose’s house were spent in her raspberry patch. As a small child, it resembled a grove, an orchard, towering all around as if in the sweetest of jungles. There were narrow walkways between each row of blossoming and budding and fruit-bearing stalks, and I would walk them with my hands and eyes and mouth wide open. Both from the beauty of it, the wonder of the whole scene. But also from its utter deliciousness: a feast for all the senses.
We were given small kitchen bowls to gather the sweet clusters. Very few berries were ever brought up to the house again. Cheeks and lips and fingertips were stained the lush red of summer, sweet nectar of heavenly goodness.
And if I can imagine a time of utter purity and joy, it would be there, in Rose’s raspberry patch.
This past summer we took O. and B. blackberry picking at the orchard the first weekend it was open. It had a similar patch in the sun, but with much wider rows and tall wooden supports holding up the great awning of leaves. As we walked up to the small garden we watched many other families walk away with empty baskets, consoling children who headed home without a single tart berry. As we scanned the perimeter from top to bottom, it seemed that these bushes were in indeed bare of anything ripe. There were green beginnings of fruit and dry, hard grit stuck to stems. Plenty of pink or red or white or green. But standing in front of the giant branches, we could not spy a single dark currant.
We were about to join the others who turned toward the barn when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a woman, down on her knees digging into the cool earth and her arms deep into the bush. Her basket was nearly full.
Inspired by the woman enmeshed in the grove, I slowed down and changed my angle. I dropped down lower, becoming childlike in posture, gently and tenderly sinking into the leaves. It was slow, silent, honest seeking. And after only a few moments, I started to find the plump clusters deep inside.
Dozens of them.
I showed one to O. and modeled how we search. She squatted down in her purple shorts and cautiously entered into the shadowed leaves. One by one, round, juicy berries were plucked off the stems and plopped into her giddy mouth. It was as if we discovered secret, nearly buried treasure.
Amidst the smacking of toddler lips, I still could hear disappointed voices from the other side of the row:
There’s nothing here.
Let’s go.
It’s not worth it.
My heart ached. Because here’s the truth: there was goodness in there. Not all was unripe or dried up or scorched by the beetles.
And then I was struck by all the parallels:
Truth exists, and it is good.
Truth is here among us.
It is overlooked all around.
Tasters of truth bend, lowly and humble, into the childlike posture:
To engage the earth.
Dig on our knees.
Extend our arms.
Look.
Reach.
Slow down.
The spiritual quest is blackberry picking.
Earlier that year, one of my favorite teachers told us that living with God is indeed much like berry picking. When we wake each day, Christ asks us:
Michaela, do you want to pick raspberries with me today?
Would you walk with me?
Simply be with me?
And we, the grove hands and tenders of this good earth, have the choice, the freest of wills, to concede or reject the Savior's invitation. We can walk and talk with God like Eden, in the cool of the day unashamed and free and loved. Or we can make our own way, try to nourish our own souls, or sink into briars and weeds guised as a good. We indeed can chose.
The life that He invites us into is the peace of a child in Rose’s garden. It is as sweet as the warm, red drips-- even in spite of life’s inevitable thorns. Life walking in the garden with Jesus is still the most beautiful of journeys.
And so a few weeks later, as I packed up every single one of our earthly things and pictured the parsonage with each strip of packing tape, I decided that I would plant raspberry bushes. Somewhere in the yard, I would dig my hands into the wet dirt and plant a living reminder, an Ebenezer of sorts, of raspberry bushes. Reminding my heart of his peace and goodness, of his steady and gentle invitation to live with and in and through Him. To walk with God like a child picking berries.
But here is the truest grace.
Here is where my heart could actually burst.
We pulled into the driveway, and the first thing I noticed was a raspberry bush.
Growing high and tall against the white painted garage, its deep green leaves spread wild and strong in the August sun.
And I realized that this is grace for us.
This is the kind of grace God gives to all of us.
Every single one of us.
This is the unimaginable goodness of God.
The love that goes before us and surprises us and drips down our hearts as the most joyful thing.
And because we all need reminders of the Garden…
Audrey Assad’s music brings me back to the steady invitations of Christ. May we all tend his world in our work and homes with peace. And my this song be your melody as you walk beside Him through each narrow row: