Blackberries Everywhere, Sweet as the Goodness of God

Blackberries growing wild outside my study.

I walk along the country footpaths around my house, the hedgerows full of blackberries. They’ve been out for weeks, and I’ve seen families gather them for jam or pies, but I, I’m trying to jog, and maintain my pace, or am engrossed in my audiobook, I rarely stop to taste them.

Today, I did, and oh, they were sweet, and delicious.

And ripe with allegory and metaphor.

* * *

Whole sections of our orchard have been taken over by these brambles running wild. We’ve lived here for 8 years now. What a task it’s going to be to tame it!!

Yeah, weeds grow more readily in the garden of life than apple trees; the unwanted proliferates, but in the midst of the jungle of the never-asked-for-this, don’t-want-it which is our life, there remain fat, black, sweet blackberries. In the middle of the thorniest, most ensnarled thicket.

* * *

And the question is, am I stupidly going to be too busy for the banquet?

Or am I going to slow down and savour sweetness in the midst of all the things which didn’t go according to plan, the brambles which have taken over my orchard?

Am I going to stop my mind in her I’ve-Got-To track—got to listen to this book, got to maintain my jogging pace, and instead, slowly savour this goodness given to me unasked, unbidden, freely, generously?

Fat, sweet, ripe delicious blackberries.

Today, I returned my face stained with Holy Communion. I ate those free gifts from the goodness of God.

“Abundance, I give you,” He says. “My own self, I give you. Come, eat.”