The Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your needs in parched places and make your bones strong, and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters never fail. – Isaiah 58:11 (NSRVUE)
Farm season started last week. For me, that is the real marker of the beginning of summer. We continue to have a share at Rancocas Creek Farm. For twenty weeks each year we stop by the farm to pick out some of the produce that has been harvested. Usually there are some items that we can go out into the field and pick ourselves as well. The twenty weeks started on June 3 this year, and I was there on the first day. As is typical for June, the food available tilted heavily towards salad-friendly items: lettuce, swiss chard, collard greens, garlic scapes, herbs, radishes, turnips, beets. The real fun of the season, though, is getting to the fields. In the early season that means snow peas. There is an important connection found in picking your food off of the plant it grew on. I find I appreciate it more when I know what the plant looks like, how the vegetables grow from the plant, and what strategies are needed to pick it most effectively.
As we move into the summer fully, it can be a time to spiritually connect with where we come from. We often get busy with what we produce (get it? Shifting from vegetables as produce to the things that we produce with our time and effort) that we forget about what undergirds what we do. What kind of life-giving plant nourishes us into healthy growth? Relationships with family and friends is certainly part of it, as is a sense of purpose in what we do. Undergirding those things would be our values and principles, which in turn stem from a spiritual core. As we move through the summer, take time to examine that spiritual plant that provides the foundation for everything else you do. Are you giving it the nurturing required for it to be strong and healthy so that the rest of your life is strong and healthy? If not, look into ways to better care for it. If you need a starting place, try the “Taking Faith Home” inserts in our bulletins. It is full of bible readings, conversations, practices, prayers, and blessings. Using those things weekly can make a difference that will show up in the harvest.