My brother, Larry, and I dug up the potatoes the other day. We had managed to plant fifty pounds of Kanabecs between rains late last Spring and now were harvesting the fruits of our labors. It wasn't a huge crop, maybe five bushels or so, but the real reward for me was our labor together.
Larry and I used the garden plow that both our father and grandfather had used in planting the garden. With that old plow, we plowed the rows to plant the potatoes and, at the end of the season, we opened the potato-laden ground to reveal the harvest. As we each took turns pushing the plow from one end of the rows to the other, the sweat and effort gave way to stories of days gone by. Picking up and brushing off the potatoes to be taken to the 'bin' where they will be kept until eaten was the picking up and brushing off of family traditions, both of feeding the family when 'bought food' was not the common thing on the table and of laboring side by side with someone you love.
In this day and age when we are likely to return items to a store, return videos when watched, return newspapers for recycling, return from a trip, or return calls to a client, the once a season moment of digging potatoes together is a gift that will never be able to be returned. For, just as we remembered all those days of our ancestors working the ground in quite similar ways, what transpired on that early Autumn day was a blessing which worked its wonder far beyond the earth which provided our bounty. Not to be returned are the hearts which were touched in love through shared labors, a gift of grace from a very loving God.
The human endeavor may never find its way back to God's original Eden, but every so often, God's Eden appears in sacred places and memory serves to guard us against casually returning that which makes life new again, generation after generation. May my greatest return to God be with such fullness of love in my life.
Your servant in Christ,
Pastor Don
