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Month: October 2019

Plant Camp

Plant Camp

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Thursday evening I was thanking God for the fact that it wasn’t Monday when The Voice would be on, and it was a travel day for the Nationals so there was no late-night baseball to watch and keep me up.

Nope, it was just a beautiful evening to end a beautiful day.  And a perfect excuse to plop myself just one more time in the chair and enjoy some time outside.

Last week we cut down the banana trees and got what was left bedded down for winter, and we carefully wrapped the four palm trees I had in the ground in hopes they would make it through until spring.

But today we had to deal with those plants that weren’t in the ground.  The many (and I mean many) plants of all shapes, sizes, and varieties that were growing in pots and would have to go somewhere warm for the winter.

And preferably not in my house.

And that is not because I don’t like plants, I do, but my house already looks like a Meadows Farms franchise location.

In case you haven’t figured this out by now, my wife has this really serious plant jones.  She is constantly bringing home plants or starting something from a seed.  My house is loaded with olive trees, fig-trees, money trees, avocado trees, and on and on and on.

At one point this summer I told my wife I was going to attach leaves to my body so she would pay more attention to me.

I was feeling neglected (she doesn’t pour water on me like that).

But I have grown used to it.

Anyway today was the day we had to pack up the big yucca plant, the jasmine, the lemon trees, and the citrus bush, the indoor palm, and the rest of the ten palm trees I haven’t put in the ground yet and take them to plant camp…that is anyone, anywhere that we can find willing to plant sit for the winter.

The decks are bare now.  Whatever is left, mostly ferns, will die off and be replaced in the spring.  There is only so much you can do.

And I guess if your wife is going to have an urge to bring things home, there are worse things than plants.

I should be thankful it’s not cats.

Well, it is almost time for the game to start.

Time to plop down for another night in front of the TV for some local World Series excitement.

Go Nats!

Loading up the truck for Plant Camp
To Every Thing There Is a Season

To Every Thing There Is a Season

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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

(Ecclesiastes 3:1-2)

 

This is a bittersweet time of the year for me.

Trying to hold on to the last hint of summer, we spent a long weekend at the beach last week fishing, biking, and getting some rest.

This morning however the temperature was 34 degrees, signaling that it was the time of the year to give up the sanctuary of our back yard that we worked so hard in the spring to build, and begin to get ready for winter.

The time to pluck up that which was planted.

The first time I held my wife’s hand early in our courtship I remember saying to myself, “man, this girl has some rough hands!”

A farmer’s daughter, growing up working on the farm, created those tough hands.

And on a day like this, the time for plucking, that kind of wife comes in real handy.

So this morning the annual ritual of taking down the banana trees began.  This was the most prolific year we have had with our banana trees, and they produced many “pups.”  They also grew bigger than they ever had before.

One by one we dropped them down leaving about four to six inches of the plant above the ground.

We collected the leaves of the hardwood trees that had fallen, having served their purpose now laying in colors of red, orange, yellow, and brown in our yard.  These leaves will serve a different purpose now, to try to preserve the life of what was left of the banana in the ground as winter sets in.

So we covered the short stumps of the banana trees with the dead leaves.  On top of the leaves we laid the clippings of the tall grasses from our yard leaving some of the grasses up for the birds and as protection for the fish in the koi pond.  Then finally on top of the dead leaves and the tall grasses, we made a thick layer using the leaf of the banana trees themselves.  Some of these leaves were over six feet long.

Once the banana trees were tended to we dug up the bulbs to be brought inside for the winter and wrapped the palm trees with bubble wrap and a bed of pine needles.  This will be my first experience with trying to get a palm tree through a winter.  With bubble wrap and duct tape, the four trees I planted this year in the yard were ready.

It was a good day, and now as I sit on my deck without the privacy of my banana trees, I realize they had served their purpose all summer long, and today we served ours, working hard all day to hopefully bring them back again in the spring.

 

Yesterday our mail contained an envelope addressed to Donny from the Franklin Mint.  After seventeen years to get a piece of mail addressed to Donny caused a bit of a pause.

Because I guess I realize that to every thing there is a season.

And I understand a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted.

But sometimes it’s hard to understand why that to those who are born, the time to die could come so quickly.

Couldn’t we have just wrapped them in bubble wrap and duct tape just that one time and protected them?

I don’t suppose.

I guess there is a time to every purpose under heaven, even if we don’t understand.

The Harvest, We Reap What We Sow

The Harvest, We Reap What We Sow

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Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all the decrees and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him? And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today?  Deuteronomy 4:6-8

 

The laws, the rules we live by.

The speaker introducing the message at church this Sunday used the analogy of playing with fire.  Our innate insistence on sometimes challenging wisdom, rules, and laws out of a curious need to know more,  or the feeling that we know better maybe. Our inability to trust what we are being told, our need to learn it ourselves… like playing with fire, until we get burned.

 

I am in western Pennsylvania again and this time of year it’s the harvest, the time when you reap what you sow.

It was a good week, the predicted rain held off and “the boys” (Kim’s brothers Kerry and Keith,  and nephew Josh) were able to finish harvesting the soybeans in the fields down by Scullton and return the two large combines back to the farm to be moved to another field when work started again on Monday.

Unlike the last time I shared my harvest experience, a time when there was uncertainty in my life and uncertainty in our country with the upcoming election, I didn’t get to ride in the combine.   But by the end of the weekend I would feel that it was me who was benefiting from the reaping.

Having moved from the intro message delivered in the sanctuary to the basement classroom for Sunday school, we discussed Deuteronomy some more and the laws being passed on to the new nation of Israel.

Later those same rules to live by would be shared to other nations through the life of Jesus and his disciples.

On this Sunday, as we always do when we are at Kim’s home in Somerset, we attended services at the Geiger Church of the Brethren.  I have been to church here many times over the last twenty years, but not until this visit was I ever at the Geiger Church of the Brethren for their communion.

The Brethren have communion only twice per year. That may be because it is different.  Communion for The Church of the Brethren is not just the bread and cup.  It is referred to as the Love Feast.

And the Love Feast does include a meal as you might guess, but more importantly it includes, just as Jesus did for the disciples at the Last Supper, the washing of feet.

Only after they wash each other’s feet, a simple meal is served.  And finally after the meal the bread and the cup, the body and blood of Christ is served.

So just like Jesus did at the last supper, I sat in a chair while another brother washed my feet, then dried my feet with the long apron tied around his waist, then he kissed me on the cheek and blessed me.  When it was my turn, and I received the apron, I washed the feet of the next brother behind me.  I dried his feet with the apron around my waist, kissed him on the cheek and blessed him. Then I untied the apron… and so on and so on.

It’s hard not to be reminded in that moment of what Jesus was reminding the disciples;  take his message, and live by God’s rules as he had lived out for them to see, in the time leading up this last meal of fellowship.  By washing their feet he was demonstrating the ultimate act of love for your brother, in humbleness and service.

 

Now, we have another great nation that seems to be in constant turmoil.  As a nation we may not have our God as close to us as He used to be.

I can’t help imagining our leaders, our members of Congress, experiencing this act of love and service to one another; each taking their turn to have their feet washed, dried by the apron, and finished with a kiss on the cheek and receiving a blessing.   Then turning to the member in the next seat, kneeling with the basin, washing and drying their feet, a kiss on the cheek and a blessing.

And so on and so on.

 

Might be different vibe in the room after that.

You reap what you sow.

 

So he got up from the meal. Took off his outer clothing. And wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with a towel that was wrapped around him.

I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

John 13: 4-5, – 15-17