Late last week I found myself in blueberry heaven. Nestled in the rolling hills and rich, green valleys of southern Wisconsin lies Rush River Farm. It is a wonderfully idyllic place filled with row upon row of luscious blueberries and bright red currants. The white farmhouse and sturdy red barn welcome city immigrants to taste the goodness of farm living and working for a few hours at a by-the-pound fee. Colorful prayer flags fluttered in the breeze as pickers bent and reached between scratchy branches to turn their fingers blue with the fruit that hangs suspended in clean air and blazing sunshine. Conversations floated over the hedges, children’s squeals and laughter danced in the air, and birdsong both real and recorded(to scare away the winged ones) provided a soundtrack for our work. Looking out across the field a wide assortment of hats moved methodically down the perfect rows.

Picking berries is a kind of prayer for me. On Friday I was still in that place of ‘thank everything that is thank-able’ that I wrote about earlier in the week. And so I was quietly thanking the plants and planters, the tenders, soil, water and sun for providing this bounty. I was also thanking a Creator who dreamed up such a wild process by which we live, a process that calls us to be in tune with the often forgiving land that feeds us.

Picking can also be an obsessive kind of activity as I was reminded when a woman made her way down the row beside mine. Carrying her loaded down basket of berries, she stopped to add a few more to the dark blue mound. “I just can’t stop myself!” she said. ” It is just greed, I guess.” I agreed that it is difficult to know when to stop. We laughed and she headed to check out. I returned to creating a larger pile of summer’s abundance.

I thought then about her statement about greed and realized that for me it is not so much about greed. It is about responsibility. A responsibility to not waste any of the gift of this plant that offers itself to me. I want to save and enjoy each berry offered. What if no one comes who will pick this one? Or that one? What if they fall to the ground, uneaten, and die? Which, of course, some will. But that is a part of the whole amazing cycle of which human, plant, earth and creatures are a part. What I am unable to pick will also become food for another human or the birds or insects or make its way into the soil as next year’s fertilizer. It is a wonderful miracle.

Because I was still in that ‘thanking’ place, I thought of Jesus’ stories about farmers and seeds and not worrying or being overly responsible for things out of my control. I also thought about the psalmists, many of whom made their lives by being thankers: “ These all look to you to give them their food in due season; when you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things. When you send forth your spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the ground.”(Psalm 104) 

I left my picking experience with several pounds of dark blue berries and a heart overflowing with gratitude. A gratitude that will be refueled each time I open the freezer and pull out a bag of fruit offered to me from the gifts of earth on an exquisite July morning. Thanks be to God!

Check out Rush River Farm………www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrVRZU3rM6A