I'm on Craig's List

Living in the country, being on my own and older now and being the preacher, I am the recipient of many random acts of kindness, although they aren’t really that random, especially this time of year.

It’s harvest time in the mountains.  Cucumbers are about done, and so are zuccinis.  But there’s still lots of squash and tomatoes and peppers.

You might be tempted to think I am a gardener.  But I’m not.

What I am is the beneficial recipient of the fruits of the labors of others.  Neighbors, friends and congregants will drop off at the odd time various vegetables from their gardens.  I am so grateful to them all – for thinking of me and including me.

One of my ‘angels’ is Craig Smith.  Craig always (so he claims) has more food from his garden than he and Belinda can use.  And so he comes by every so often to the neighbors with buckets filled with goodies that we get to pick through, taking what we can use.

We both spent our morning, Craig and I and lots of others, at Edna Mae’s funeral.  I came back to the computer and Craig to his garden.  And so here he came again, this time with green and jalapeno peppers added to the largesse.

I don’t know how I got on Craig’s list (I didn’t have to sign up or enter a password or anything – all I had to do was be here), but I’m sure glad I did – glad to have such kind neighbors.  Craig’s the kind of guy who would keep Edna Mae stocked with fire wood.  No fuss, just kindness.  That’s how the folks around here are.  No fuss.  Just a lot of kindness.

Tre- e - e - e - e - e!

I recently ran across this picture that I first saw last year on FaceBook.  It filled me then and fills me now with delight.  It’s just so unexpected.  But it also delights me because it reminds me of one of the first times my grandson came and stayed with me when he was a big enough boy to stay by himself without Mommy or Daddy.

When we went outside to play, Rowen ran from tree to tree, pointed and shouted at the top of his lungs, Tre -e - e - e - e - e!, as if greeting a long-lost friend.  And then he began to hug them.  That’s right: my grandson’s a tree hugger, and I’m proud to say it.

But with the Derecho of Friday a week ago, we have been reminded that trees are not eternal, that they too are subject to a force more powerful, the force of wind:  that which can be measured and experienced, but not seen.

I’m one of the lucky ones: no tree took the life of anyone I know nor injured anything I am personally attached to.  If I were, I do not know how I would look at trees now, whether I would still see their beauty and grandeur or whether I would view them with suspicion and fear.

Looking west from my back yard

Mindful of the tremendous losses others have suffered, it is the trees that draw my attention now, ever-present as they are where I live.

I look to the trees and I imagine God not as some old man, but as a little boy in a garden of his own making, a garden where the winds have come through, leaving some of the trees standing while others lie impotently dying on their sides.  And I imagine this boy-child of a God greeting each one with the enthusiasm that only little boys on an adventure can show: enthusiastically joyful for those who live, enthusiastically sorrowful for those who die, each greeted as beloved friend, each fully embraced for the tree that it is.

Winds come and winds go.  Trees thrive and trees die.  God-treasures all.