My seminary president long ago, a church historian, often referred to “farmer theologians” in early America, seeing the hand of God in the most ordinary things around them as they worked their land. Those discussions likely had a lot to do with my format for what you now know of as “Pastoral Ponderings,” where, for decades in various forms, I’ve explored God Sightings from the most ordinary of experiences.
I realized this week I have now become one of those farmer theologians myself, as when I was recently harvesting blackberries on our mini-farm. As I saw more blackberries everywhere I looked, I was marveling in God’s creative abundance. Then I was noticing that the berries were not all the same—some with about ten, some twenty, some as many as a hundred “drupelets” (the little juicy balls that compose the berries), each one with a seed, carrying its own potential for decades of abundance—almost like a Jesus parable!
Then I looked up, and realized I’d been missing a lot of the berries above my head when I wasn’t looking where those juicy blessings were hiding in plain sight. I remembered as I continued picking, that they’re not all in plain sight, so brushing leaves aside with my heavily gloved hand to protect from the spikes, I found where many of the most juicy ones were hiding.
It’s a good thing I pick berries with thick sleeves on my arms too–I’ve often had to push through a lot of canes with those vicious teeth to get to more berries! Unfortunately the abundance of these berry blessings is not across all our acreage, though there are other kinds of blessings in other corners of the property. But if you look in the right place, the abundance is so plain to see!
Are you seeing the great theology here yet? God blesses in abundance—but we too often don’t see the blessings when we don’t look for them. Some are hiding in plain sight—just look up! Others are less evident, until you really start looking. And though these blessings are available in plenty, when we’re seeking God’s blessings—and to be a blessing to others through them—we sometimes need to push through some pretty thorns places to claim the good.
Some people only see bramble, weeds, bugs, and fallen, rotting trees mixed into the thick forest—even though they are in the midst of the abundance of God’s blessings! What do we need to do to think like farmer theologians, to be able to see the beauty of God sightings, instead of just the weeds? — ever improving our Vision—Pastor Jim