Strawberries

I’ve often found the conversations difficult after the services at my place of worship.  While many participate in organized religion for social purposes and the free coffee and donuts, I’ve often seen that weekly hour as an opportunity to consider the BIG QUESTIONS—existence, universal forces, the raison d’etre that transcends the mundane.

That was my state of mind one summer Sunday, when I decided to weave my way to the door with brief, but thoughtful, “good mornings” to everyone, in the hope I could at least get to the car contemplating something of the essence of universal salvation before thinking about, say, the grocery list.  But my hopes were dashed, as I overheard an elderly attendee effusing over the qualities of an exceptional harvest of strawberries.  He waxed eloquently, and with great enthusiasm, over their shape, texture, and sweetness, over the organist’s passionate rendition of something like A Mighty Fortress is Our God.

I suppose I could have taken my ear’s dedication to his fruity praises as some kind of heavenly sign—after all, why should his voice seem so much more prominent than the conversations about golf, grandchildren, and local road construction?  But instead of taking the higher road, I just lost it. How, in God’s name, was I ever going to achieve enlightenment or salvation focusing on discussions about strawberries?

This event stayed with me for a few days, when I happened to be talking with a respected church member about something else.  I decided to share that moment with him, as well as my response, concluding with the statement “I just think there are better things to talk about in church than strawberries.”

This wise church member (yes, I go to a church, but whatever works for you—mosque, synagogue, NFL, the peppercorn shmear at Einstein’s) paused for a moment.  Then, in the kindest tone I think I have ever heard anyone say anything, he gave me something to think about, even if I really didn’t want to:

“Why, I think there’s something really rather wonderful in talking about strawberries.”

This may have been the first time in a lifelong pursuit of the spiritual, religious, or existential I felt the true humility needed for growth away from the selfish and earthly, and towards the ethereal.  The structure and presentation of his comment reminded me that the church member who made the strawberry remark spent his life tending to a grove of apple trees that included grafts of his own creation, and he shared of his fruits—literally his fruits—freely.  This work requires intelligence, persistence, patience, and, given the fragile nature of fruit trees, tenderness, qualities any religious leader tries to include in any weekly speech given to their congregation.

In other words, this churchgoer was a remarkable mix of Johnny Appleseed and the Good Samaritan.

My wife just brought home a small box of strawberries at my request.  Eager to have one, I asked her to leave the box with me, as I wanted one right away.  She turned and walked to the kitchen with them, saying something over her shoulder about me eating pesticides, and returned with three damp strawberries cradled in a paper towel.  They were on the large side, with their seeds popping away from the fruit’s skin in an exceptional way that added tremendously to the fruits’ texture, with a remarkably sweet taste for this late in the season.

And then, after all these years, I thanked the Creator for the after-church strawberry chatter that propped open the gates of heaven for me, if only a few important inches.

Fetch?

I was thoughtful enough to seek out
That green thing you threw away
Like a useless apple
Because I thought it might hold some tasty treasure for me
Or value to you.
But now you’ve extracted it from my mouth
With a fierce sense of purpose I never knew you possessed
And tossed it away again.
My tongue is now fuzzy and dry
So it’s off to the water dish.
Get that thing yourself.

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