I walked past the blueberries one morning in mid-April.  They were in full-bloom, more blooms than we’d seen in years.  The eastern sun shone straight into those white blossoms, nearly blinding me, when I thought I heard something.  I stopped and listened.  Sure enough, there was a hum coming from the blueberries.  Even with all the birdsong going on around me, the dogs yipping and playing in the field, and the truck traffic on the highway through the woods, that hum was loud and clear.  It was nearly as loud as the fan motor in our air conditioner.

            I couldn’t see them, but a sudden whining zipping past my face told me the answer to my unspoken question—bees.  The bushes were full of them.

            A preacher’s wife I know once told me about a congregation she had worshipped with for awhile.  She had run into someone in the community who did not have any reticence about telling her what he thought about that group—those people would never do anything for anyone, not even each other.  They were known for going to church on Sunday and then ignoring everyone else the rest of the week, including their own brethren.

            You cannot read the New Testament without having your nose rubbed in the fact that the early Christians were indeed known by their communities, but for exactly the opposite sorts of things.  They were in each other’s homes constantly.  They were helping others at every opportunity that arose, both believers and outsiders.  Paul told the women who had been widowed young that they should remarry so they could stay busy; he told the older men that they should be an example of good deeds to the younger.  Peter told Christians that their good deeds would “put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.” 

            There should be a hum about the church, a busy hive of activity, showing the character of Christ through, not only our “incorrupt doctrine and sound speech,” but the good we do for others.  What exactly did Christ say to those goats in the Matthew 25 judgment scene parable?  They were lost because they did not do for others, because by not doing for others they had not done for their Lord either.

            It is a shame that somewhere a church that claims to be a part of the Lord’s body is known for doing absolutely nothing. They profess that they know God, but by their works they deny him, being abominable and disobedient and unto every good work reprobate, Titus 1:16.

            Wherever you are today, make sure you are not the one in question.  Keep the hum alive.

Looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify until himself a people for his own possession, zealous of good works, Titus 2:13,14.

Dene Ward

            Garden season is nearly over down here in Florida.  A few months ago I transplanted my herb seedlings from cups to the herb bed.  We made the first transplant in March from the peat plugs we had placed the seeds in, to larger cups. We always write the type of plant on the cup so if they get mixed up, we will know what we are working with.  Some of the cups were clear plastic and the dark potting soil made it difficult to read the black marker writing on the outside.  Yet I could see “Sweet Ba” and since the majority of the plugs were herbs, I was positive they were “sweet basil” plants.  

            Imagine my surprise when, after planting the plants, I picked up two of the now empty clear cups and was able to see “Sweet Banana” on the side.  Two of those five plants were banana peppers, not basil!  So I dug those two out and took them to the main garden, transplanting them yet again, this time into the pepper row.  I double-checked all the cups, and yes, there were only two.  The others were either Sweet Basil or Marseilles Basil.

            That evening as I showed Keith the herb bed and told him the story, he walked around and looked at the basil from a different angle.  ‘’You know,” he said, “those three plants look like peppers too.”

            “Impossible,” I told him.  “I was very careful when we transplanted them to write what each plant was on the outside, and those are basil!”  Besides, I thought to myself, you are a vegetable gardener, not an herbalist.  You don’t even know what half these things are.

            Then I leaned a little closer—well, actually a lot closer.  Those leaves were a little different, a bit more spade-shaped, but then French basil looks much different than Italian too.  Finally I reached down and rubbed a leaf between my thumb and forefinger, and lifted them to my nose.  I should have been knocked over by the strong smell of basil.  Instead I got maybe a little whiff of “green” smell, nothing more.  They were indeed pepper plants.

            I wonder how many times we are too sure of ourselves.  We know what we know, we know how we got that knowledge, and we know that we know more than most, so how can we be wrong?  We have believed this thing for years.  Our parents or some highly respected teacher taught us.  It cannot possibly be wrong.

            So there we sit with peppers in our herb bed.  Peppers are good to have.  I cook with them a lot.  But when it comes time for a Caprese salad they are totally out of place, and I would like to see anyone try to make pesto with them.  Even if I am positive they are basil, the facts won’t change, and I will simply look ignorant to those with unbiased vision.

            Don’t get too sure of yourself.  Be willing to listen.  Be willing to double-check anything and anyone, including, and most especially perhaps, yourself.

The Almighty—we cannot find him; he is great in power; justice and abundant righteousness he will not violate. Therefore men fear him; he does not regard any who are wise in their own conceit, Job 37:23,24.

Dene Ward

Every other morning in June I stepped outside into the morning steam of dew rising off the grass, head and eyes shielded from the bright sunshine, and carried a five quart plastic bucket to our small stand of a dozen blueberry bushes.  It always amazes me how the morning temperature can be twenty degrees cooler than the afternoon’s, yet within minutes the perspiration is rolling from hairline to chin.  Even the dogs refuse to accompany me, though a shade tree stands within mere feet of the blueberries.  They sit on the carport, their bellies flat against the still cool cement and watch, probably commenting to one another about how silly humans can be.
 
   It was so uncomfortable one morning, and the blueberries so plenteous, their weight bending the boughs in deep arcs, that after the first half hour I became a little less careful in my picking.  Often as I reached deep into the interior of a bush where I had seen several plump, ripe, dusky blueberries hanging, I simply wrapped my hand around the clump and gently nudged each one with my thumb.  Berries that are ready to be picked will fall off the stem easily, and usually I pulled out a fistful of perfectly ripe ones.  Once in awhile though, a red one appeared in my palm, and even a white or green one.  Oh well, it certainly speeded up the process to pick that way, then toss out the bad ones, and it’s not like we had a measly crop this year.

    I wonder sometimes if we aren’t too careful in our attempts to reach the lost.  We have a bad habit of deciding who will listen before we ever start talking and our judgments are so different that the ones the Lord made.  He cast his nets into a polluted river, hoping to save as many dying fish as possible; we cast ours into the country club swimming pool, but that is another metaphor for another time.

    Sometimes we come across a blueberry bush with most of the berries still red, not quite ripe for the picking so we pass it by and leave a couple of big ripe ones, just begging to be put into the pie.  It is too much trouble to go after them one at a time.

    Other times we see a bush with quite a few plump ripe berries and instead of just reaching out and grabbing all we can, because there are a few not quite ready, we move to another branch.  No need picking a handful when we might need to throw out half of them.  And so we only reach for the easy ones, the ones that appeal to us because they look like the pictures in the cookbook and are easy to get to.  Those showing a hint of red at the stem end might take a little more effort, a little more sugar in the pie filling.  And because of that we miss some that would give our pie more flavor.

    In another figure Jesus told us to sow the seed wherever we could, not take the time to map it into suitable planting zones.  He said the world is ripe for picking.  “Don’t cast your pearls before swine,” is about people who have had their chance and rejected it, not about us judging another’s suitability to be our brethren.  Where would we have wound up if people had treated us that way?

    Go pick some blueberries.  Grab all you can and let the Lord decide which ones will make the best pie.

But when he saw the multitudes he was moved with compassion for them because they were distressed and scattered, as sheep not having a shepherd.  Then he said to his disciples, the harvest indeed is plenteous, but the laborers are few.  Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest that he send forth laborers into his harvest, Matt 9:36-38

Dene Ward

This is one of our favorite times of the year—the garden is booming and dinner will always be a treat of things we can only enjoy now, when the vegetables are truly “vine-ripened” and the price is perfect—just a lot of sweat.
 
   One night we will have stuffed bell peppers in a fresh tomato sauce with green beans on the side.  The next we will have eggplant parmigiana with a squash casserole on the side.  Later in the week it will be a country veggie plate of butterbeans, sliced tomatoes, roasted corn, fried okra, and a big wedge of cornbread.  Pasta night will feature a fresh tomato sauce with fresh oregano and feta cheese or a simple cherry tomato sauce with fresh basil.  Then there will be the times we try something new, like today’s grilled eggplant and red onion sandwich on a toasted multi-grain bun with lemon aioli and a big slice of tomato plus pita chips and baba ghanoush (a dip of grilled eggplant and tahini) on the side.  As the rest of the vegetables die off, we will still have the Italian plum tomatoes and enjoy a pizza with homemade crust and tomato sauce, plus a few late season peppers and some Italian sausage.  A few nights later, we will do the same thing, but fold it over and make a calzone out of it with the sauce on the side.  Yes, this is one of our favorite times of the year.

    But now we are seeing that it will have to end sometime in the near future.  Maybe it’s the heat, maybe it’s our age, maybe it’s a combination of the two, but all this good food isn’t worth sacrificing our health for, much less our lives.  Someday soon we will have to buy canned and frozen foods at the store like everyone else instead of using the preserved items we have labored over for three months every year.  

    Which all serves to remind us of what we have lost and why.  By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” Gen 3:19.  

We sweat a lot over this garden.  Some days I think it is watered more by us than the rain.  That is as it should be, for sin deserves far worse punishment than that and every one of us has participated in it.  It is by God’s mercy that we plant in the spring when we have a cool breeze and a sun that is not directly over us.  That same mercy grants us a salvation we do not deserve, and the help to make it through a life we have all but ruined from the beginning.  Why should we expect a perfect life now?  Why should we expect that things will always turn out right?  Someone has not been reading the same Bible I have.  It is grace that promises us that there is a perfect place in the future.  Don’t look upon that hope with ingratitude because you cannot have it now.  We have only ourselves to blame.

    But in the midst of the toil, the sweat, the thorns and thistles and weeds, we enjoy a few weeks of some of the best meals in the world—not gourmet feasts, not something concocted by a celebrity chef—but the plain and simple fare that comes straight from the ground and reminds us of the provision God has made “for the just and the unjust,” not because He had to, but because He wanted to.  It also reminds us of the garden we will return to someday, and never have to leave again.  If you don’t have your own garden, head to the farmers’ market this week and remind yourselves that God still loves us.  This is the way it is supposed to be, and it can be again.  It’s up to you whether you get to enjoy it.

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned…But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many…For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ, Rom 5:12,15,17.

Dene Ward

Keith decided that since we have gone to so much trouble and spent so much money on this trellis with 9 vining plants, a raised bed and 36 periwinkles clustered at the base of the vines, that we should mulch it properly.  So he bought 12 bags of cypress mulch.  I am thrilled.  I have already spent more time weeding this thing than I did the whole vegetable garden this year, and the other morning just as I was getting close to the purple trumpet flower a snake crawled out of it.  I will be happy not to have to stick my face down so close to that vine in the future.
 
   We often use the metaphor of weeds choking out a person’s spirituality.  And he that was sown among the thorns, this is he who hears the word, and the care of the world and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word and he becomes unfruitful, Matt 13:22—certainly a good and scriptural analogy.  We had a little problem with that in our beans this year as a matter of fact.

    But if weeds growing up around a plant can choke it out, certainly a four inch layer of mulch lying around the plant can choke the weeds out.  If we fill our lives with righteousness, with service to others, and with God’s word, sin won’t have a chance.  

    One reason weeds will choke out a plant is that they steal the nutrients out of the ground.  They steal the water.  They steal the sunlight by growing over the plants and shading them.  A good layer of mulch will steal those same things from the weeds.  They will not be able to grow, and meanwhile the plants will become stronger and larger. The mulch also keeps the ground cooler and retains moisture, creating a better environment for the plant.  If a weed somehow does manage to find a crack through which to grow, the plant won’t die from it, and it is so obvious it will be pulled immediately.

    Mulch your life today, being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are through Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God, Phil 1:11.  Surround yourself with good people who will encourage you and teach you, who will set good examples, and whose needs will keep you so busy serving you don’t have time for sin.  Spend time with the word of God, reading, studying, attending Bible classes, and listening to sermons.  Pray as often as you can, not just before bed and at meals.  Cram so much righteousness into your life that no room remains for anything else.  Then watch how seldom you sin and how much you grow, less of the one and more of the other than ever before.

For this cause we also, since the day we heard, do not cease to pray and make request for you, that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding to walk worthily of the Lord unto all pleasing, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to the might of his glory unto all patience and longsuffering with joy, Col 1:9-11.

Dene Ward

One spring morning a couple of years ago I sat on the carport snapping beans.  The humidity was still low, the bugs were few, and a cool breeze ruffled my curls and made the morning comfortable.  The minute I set myself up in a lawn chair, a blue plastic five gallon bucket at the ready for tips and tails, and a pink hospital tub full of early pole beans in my lap, the dogs came running, looking for a handout.

    “These are green beans,” I told them, “not treats.”  Yet they sat watching me expectantly, one dog parked next to either knee, ears at attention, tails swishing sparkly grains of sand across the rough concrete.  Occasionally Magdi’s big brown eyes strayed from my face to my hands and she licked her chops.

    “Okay,” I told her, “but you’ll be sorry,” and I handed her a long, flat, raw bean.  I could hardly believe it as she crunched away, swallowed and begged for another.  So I rifled through the tub and found one too big and tough for human consumption.  Down the hatch it went.

    Chloe, who was then just over a year old, bumped my knee with her nose.  “Me too,” her equally big brown eyes said, so I gave her a bean.  Instantly she spat it out.  “Yuk!” was written all over her furry face.

    “Told ya,” I smugly commented.

    Yet Magdi continued to down the culls as I found them, relishing every bite.  Chloe watched Magdi, then looked at the bean she had rejected.  She sniffed it and her ears drooped a bit.  She looked at Magdi again, who was happily chomping a bug-bitten throwaway.  Chloe looked at her bean and licked it.  She looked at Magdi again, then gingerly picked up her own bean and began to chew.  She managed to choke the thing down, then sat up and looked at me with that familiar expectant gaze.

    “You’re kidding,” I said to her, but handed her another bean.  This one went down more easily.  Luckily I had a large supply of fresh-picked beans and Keith had not been too careful in his picking so I had plenty of bad ones to share.  By the time I finished Magdi had long since had her fill, but Chloe was scouring the carport like a fuzzy, red-headed vacuum cleaner, scarfing up even the tips and tails that had missed the trash bucket.

    Chloe was no longer a puppy, but she was still learning from her older mentor.  The simple “peer pressure” of seeing someone she respected eating something she didn’t even like influenced her to do the same thing.

    It’s time to look around and see whom you might be influencing.  Just because there are no toddlers in the house doesn’t mean you don’t need to be careful.  Whatever your age, there is someone younger watching how you handle the universal experiences of life so they will know what to do when their turn comes.

    And to the other side of the equation—why do you do the things you do?  Are you as strong as you think you are when the world presses you to act in certain ways?  Are you doing things you don’t even enjoy just to fit in?  Stop watching how others react.  Stop making decisions based on something besides right and wrong.  If you don’t, you may find yourself licking a rough concrete slab, eating a pile of tough, bug-bitten green beans just because everyone else is doing it.

Be careful to observe all these words that I command you, that it may go well with you and with your children after you forever when you do what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God.  When the Lord your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, take care that you be not ensnared to follow after them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods?—that I may also do the same.’ You shall not worship your God in that way…Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do.  You shall not add to it nor take from it, Deut 12:28-32.

Dene Ward

My daylilies have been on a roller coaster ride lately.  They bloomed so prodigiously, and multiplied so quickly that ten years ago I had to dig them up from their bed by the grape arbor and replant them thinner, planting another bed behind the shed with some of the extras, and still giving away three five-gallon bucketfuls of bulbs.  They bloomed like crazy again, multiplying year by year, until once again they needed thinning.  

A few years ago, Keith had to do it for me--after a summer of eye surgeries I was relegated to supervising from a lawn chair.  But since then, few have come up and fewer have bloomed.  Perhaps we mulched them too well, Keith thought, so he raked off half the mulch this past year to see what would happen.  More blooms is what happened, and things seem better.  Next year should be another banner year of bright yellow and orange blooms.

I have noticed another thing about these lilies.  Even with mulch, the weeds still manage to creep in.  The first year I pulled grass till my hands were sore and swollen.  Blackberry thorns left them torn and bleeding, even through gloves.  The next year I did it again.  The third year things were better—most of the weeds were along the edge.  By the fourth year two weedings, one at the beginning of the year, and another near the end, took care of it.

Some day, I would like to think that the weeding won’t be necessary at all, but I live in a land of rain and sunshine, warmth even in winter, and humidity that keeps the plants green and moist.  Still, it is encouraging to see some progress.  I may never have a weed-free flower bed, but at least there are more flowers than weeds these days.

How about me?  Am I still pulling out the weeds in my heart?  Unfortunately, yes, I am.  I do not believe the job will ever be finished.  I do believe that there are fewer now than many years ago, and I think I am meant to notice that, that it is not a sign of arrogance to see the improvement in my life.  Isn’t encouragement a necessary element to growth?

That old saying, “Humility is the thing that as soon as you think you have it, you’ve lost it,” is ridiculous.  How else am I to have the impetus to keep going, especially when the job is unending and obviously so?  Why is it wrong to recognize my progress?  I might as well listen to Satan as to listen to someone say that.  

Several times Paul told the people he wrote that they were doing well, that they had grown, that he was proud of them.  James talks about looking in the mirror of God’s word to see myself.  Am I only supposed to see the faults and none of the good things?  That is exactly what leads people to become so despondent that they quit trying.  

“Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a goat,” applies to people who never receive any positive feedback, who are always criticized and told they have done wrong.  They think if they are going to receive that kind of response when doing their best, they might as well stop trying so hard.  Satan counts on that feeling, and too often we give him the opportunity to make use of it in ourselves and others.

So look at yourself carefully today.  Notice the things you still need to work on and do exactly that.  But also notice where you have improved and gain some encouragement from it.  Maybe the job today won’t be quite so tough.  If you have had a difficult time lately, that little bit of encouragement may be the thing that gets you through another day.

For you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.  And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers. 1 Thes 2:11-13.

Dene Ward

We’ve all seen those definitions of pessimism and optimism, the classic being the half-empty or half-full glass.  As a gardener, I’ve come up with my own. 

When you look out over your herb garden, do you see beautiful brightly colored butterflies flitting around, or does your mind’s eye conjure up green caterpillars on naked parsley stems, their leaves stripped away practically overnight?  I have a friend who is overjoyed at the sight of a butterfly.  I often have a difficult time sharing her joy.

But I recognize the problem.  Pessimism can easily turn to cynicism.  We want to rationalize that by calling it “being realistic.”  But here’s the difference:  
Realism understands that you won’t save everyone (Matt 7:13,14).  Cynicism doesn’t even try.  

Realism knows that you are unlikely to change the mind of that misled young man in the white shirt and tie who knocked on your door with Bible in hand, but it greets him with kindness and respect.  Cynicism views him not as a lost soul, but as an adversary and approaches him with sarcasm and downright hatefulness.

Realism knows that perhaps even a majority of those who ask for help at the meetinghouse door are making prey of good-hearted brethren, but it takes the time to politely ask a few questions and determine an appropriate action just in case.  Cynicism immediately tars them all with the same brush and sends them on empty-handed, both physically and spiritually.

Realism is compassion tempered with wisdom.  “Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”  Cynicism is malice fueled by pessimism.  It looks for the worst, it expects the worst, and ultimately it rejoices in finding it.  That is about as un-Christlike as it comes.

So watch the butterflies today and enjoy them.  You can always check for caterpillars in the parsley later, and then rejoice when you only find a few.

[Love} does not rejoice at unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  1Cor 13:6-7.

Dene Ward

We planted the main garden the second week of March.  It looks great this year, and I have already put up what we need and more, and shared with people who probably wish I wouldn’t any more.

    When the cantaloupe row came up, which is Keith’s baby, he was happy to see it full with no bare spots.  I heard about it the day he saw the first bloom.  Then a couple of weeks later he came in with a funny look on his face.  

    “Let me show you something,” he said, and I followed him out the door straight to that row of cantaloupes.  “Look at those baby cantaloupes.”  So I bent over, lifted the leaves and looked, only to discover baby cucumbers instead.  He had gone out to plant without his glasses and used up the remains of what he thought was a packet of cantaloupe seeds on the first two hills.  Turns out that packet, which did not have a picture let me hasten to add, must have said, “Cucumber.”  So the first two hills in the cantaloupe row are cucumbers.

    Is that bad?  Well, yes and no.  I already had plenty of cucumber hills planted, and these two extra hills are some of the most prolific bearers I have ever seen.  I have made my pickles and still my refrigerator is overflowing.  

    And it turns out these two hills are the best tasting of the bunch.  But since he tossed that empty packet of “cantaloupe” seeds, we have no idea what kind they were.  I have been experimenting with new varieties the past two years and these were leftovers from the year before.

    Then there is the fact that his row is two hills short of cantaloupe, which to him is a catastrophe.  So what can we learn from all this?

    Well, I doubt he will ever forget to wear his glasses when he plants the garden again.  But what about us?

    I suppose the obvious point is this—you will reap what you sow.  Thinking it is cantaloupe won’t make cucumber seeds produce them.  That old “sowing his wild oats” adage is the stupidest thing I ever heard.  All he will get, whoever he is, is wild oats.  You don’t “get it out of your system” and think you will produce anything else.  “Be sure your sin will find you out.”

    What are you sowing in your children?  What do they hear you say?  Please do not make the mistake of thinking they do not pick up on sarcastic comments and hypercritical statements, even at a very early age.  Children tend to think that everything that goes wrong is their fault, usually because they have to deal with the foul tempers of parents who take it out on them.

    What about their entertainment?  What words are being sown in their active little minds?  What ideas?  What priorities?  What character traits?  Do you even know what they are watching?  

    What about their friends?  I have had children in my home whose parents never once called or even darkened my door.  One time I had a young man for the whole weekend.  He came home with my sons on Friday and we put him on the bus Monday morning!  We didn’t mind a bit, but where was his mama?  

    What about yourself?  What are you sowing?  What is your entertainment?  What is your reading material?  Where do you go and with whom?  If you find yourself saying things you never said before, maybe it’s time to change friends.  They are sowing more in you than you are in them.

    Check the seed packet this morning before you go out.  Check it again when you come in.  Make sure you are sowing the seed of the Word of God, not only in your friends, but in your children, and in yourself.  And put on your glasses when you do.

For they sow the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind…Sow to yourself in righteousness, reap according to kindness…Hos 8:7; 10:12.

Just a note here.  We have recently discovered that some of our articles on the right sidebar have been deleted.  We are not certain when or how this happened.  Please bear with us as we try to put three years worth of work back together, and if you have any suggestions or ideas, they are welcome!

Dene Ward