okieinexile
Well-Known Member
Summer offerings
By Bobby Neal Winters
I cannot remember a summer when we had as good weather as we have this year, but I've commented on this to a number of people, and the response is almost universal, "Yes, but we will pay for it." Summer, in general, and August, in particular, are supposed to be merciless. What few days of break that we receive from searing heat by clouds or rain are supposed to be paid for by humidity and redoubled heat when those cool days are over. Whenever this expectation is not met, we descend to superstition and believe that disaster is soon to befall us.
But disaster has not befallen us yet--knock wood--and hope springs eternal. God in his mercy has granted us some nice summer weather, and gratitude is the appropriate response. We ourselves have done nothing to deserve weather this nice, but we do know there are others, far less worthy than we, who get it all the time, so lets keep our mouths shut and, for heaven's sake, keep smiling.
There is a word used in churches for getting something good that you don't deserve and that is "grace", but grace seems to be something we don't see—or, perhaps, don't administer—often enough to recognize. There is danger in not knowing grace on a personal basis. Don Henley sang a song back in the 80's called The End of the Innocence in which he asked, "How can love survive in such a graceless age?" Love dies when it only goes to those who deserve it.
I grew up in the country and learned about grace from my neighbors. The first taste came in the form of watermelons. Someone in the neighborhood, usually either my Grampa Sam or our neighbor Buck Crabtree, would buy a watermelon, and you must understand getting a small melon suitable for a single family was unheard of. The melons in question could be mistaken for something in the Flintstone's garden.
A melon that big couldn't be chilled in a refrigerator because it wouldn't even fit, so it was put in an old-fashioned washtub and covered in cold water. Once it was cut, it had to be eaten because the general wisdom was that cut melons wilted in the refrigerator. If someone had made melon balls and froze them, as is now commonly done, they would have been put in the insane asylum, "Turn a melon into little balls? What's the matter with you?"
In sharing our neighbor's melon, we learned grace. When you are around people who do engage in such activities, you start buying huge watermelons yourself so you can share too. One might think of this as using watermelons as a means of grace.
I've been reminded of another means of grace recently. One of my coworkers gave me enough green beans to make the Jolly Green Giant look like a midget. Add a little bacon, a few new potatoes, and maybe a little cornbread, and you get something we Okies can call a meal.
Some of you may know I am a lay preacher in my spare time. One of the places where I fill-in is in Opolis. The other day one of the saints from the church of the Lord which is in Opolis handed unto me a variety pack of garden produce that might very well keep my family fed until payday rolls around. For us teachers, there is a long break between the last paycheck of summer and the first one of fall, and with these vegetables, we won't have to worry about the little ones a-getting the scurvy.
These folks recognize that God gave them their respective gardens. They might have cultivated it, planted it, weeded it, watered it, and gathered it, but God grew it. I know how to hoe a tomato, but I don't know how to grow a tomato.
Those who grow vegetables know God's bounty often comes in inconvenient quantities, and we are forced to can, to share, or to let it go to waste. Sharing is easier than canning and much, much cooler. And letting it go to waste is just wrong.
We have a single peach tree, and all of the peaches seem to ripen at once. When they are ripe, nothing smells sweeter, but when they rot, they smell like nothing so much as sin. If I were a fundamentalist, I would say that a rotten, moldy peach is just a foretaste of what's in store in the next world for those who don't share. As it is, I'll just let you make up your own mind.
(Bobby Winters is a professor of mathematics, a writer, and a speaker. You may contact him at bobby@okieinexile.com.)
By Bobby Neal Winters
I cannot remember a summer when we had as good weather as we have this year, but I've commented on this to a number of people, and the response is almost universal, "Yes, but we will pay for it." Summer, in general, and August, in particular, are supposed to be merciless. What few days of break that we receive from searing heat by clouds or rain are supposed to be paid for by humidity and redoubled heat when those cool days are over. Whenever this expectation is not met, we descend to superstition and believe that disaster is soon to befall us.
But disaster has not befallen us yet--knock wood--and hope springs eternal. God in his mercy has granted us some nice summer weather, and gratitude is the appropriate response. We ourselves have done nothing to deserve weather this nice, but we do know there are others, far less worthy than we, who get it all the time, so lets keep our mouths shut and, for heaven's sake, keep smiling.
There is a word used in churches for getting something good that you don't deserve and that is "grace", but grace seems to be something we don't see—or, perhaps, don't administer—often enough to recognize. There is danger in not knowing grace on a personal basis. Don Henley sang a song back in the 80's called The End of the Innocence in which he asked, "How can love survive in such a graceless age?" Love dies when it only goes to those who deserve it.
I grew up in the country and learned about grace from my neighbors. The first taste came in the form of watermelons. Someone in the neighborhood, usually either my Grampa Sam or our neighbor Buck Crabtree, would buy a watermelon, and you must understand getting a small melon suitable for a single family was unheard of. The melons in question could be mistaken for something in the Flintstone's garden.
A melon that big couldn't be chilled in a refrigerator because it wouldn't even fit, so it was put in an old-fashioned washtub and covered in cold water. Once it was cut, it had to be eaten because the general wisdom was that cut melons wilted in the refrigerator. If someone had made melon balls and froze them, as is now commonly done, they would have been put in the insane asylum, "Turn a melon into little balls? What's the matter with you?"
In sharing our neighbor's melon, we learned grace. When you are around people who do engage in such activities, you start buying huge watermelons yourself so you can share too. One might think of this as using watermelons as a means of grace.
I've been reminded of another means of grace recently. One of my coworkers gave me enough green beans to make the Jolly Green Giant look like a midget. Add a little bacon, a few new potatoes, and maybe a little cornbread, and you get something we Okies can call a meal.
Some of you may know I am a lay preacher in my spare time. One of the places where I fill-in is in Opolis. The other day one of the saints from the church of the Lord which is in Opolis handed unto me a variety pack of garden produce that might very well keep my family fed until payday rolls around. For us teachers, there is a long break between the last paycheck of summer and the first one of fall, and with these vegetables, we won't have to worry about the little ones a-getting the scurvy.
These folks recognize that God gave them their respective gardens. They might have cultivated it, planted it, weeded it, watered it, and gathered it, but God grew it. I know how to hoe a tomato, but I don't know how to grow a tomato.
Those who grow vegetables know God's bounty often comes in inconvenient quantities, and we are forced to can, to share, or to let it go to waste. Sharing is easier than canning and much, much cooler. And letting it go to waste is just wrong.
We have a single peach tree, and all of the peaches seem to ripen at once. When they are ripe, nothing smells sweeter, but when they rot, they smell like nothing so much as sin. If I were a fundamentalist, I would say that a rotten, moldy peach is just a foretaste of what's in store in the next world for those who don't share. As it is, I'll just let you make up your own mind.
(Bobby Winters is a professor of mathematics, a writer, and a speaker. You may contact him at bobby@okieinexile.com.)
