Blueberry Therapy

It started with a smattering of blue on green last weekend, but today it was all out blueness on the bushes. The blueberries are here, and there's LOTS!

With the welcome addition of a slight breeze to the sudden summer weather, it was a perfect day today to get out there for some pickings. Warm, sunny, ripe. I had just finished a particularly moving and intimate conversation with God on the deck, and looked up to see that it was just before lunch. "I think I'll go get me some blueberries", I said as sort of the last part of my prayer.

Takes a bit to get ready to go blueberry picking. A hat to keep off those tenacious deer flies. Insect repellent to keep the mosquitoes at bay. Long pants, socks and shoes (the only time I wear them up here) to avoid juniper, or the odd nest of red ants. Shoes also gives a better layer of protection against the rattlesnakes. Let's see what else? Right. The air horn just in case I meet up with the bear. Got my berry bucket, and off I go.

I guess you really have to love blueberries to put up with all that. And I do enjoy eating them. In fact we plan on having blueberry pancakes this weekend when friends are up for a visit, and I can hardly wait.

But when it comes to blueberries, there's more than just the taste factor for me. Truth is, inspite of the annoyances and cautions, I do love the therapy of actually being out there picking them. Yes, I've been driven to near madness by dear flies, eaten alive by mosquitoes, pricked by junipers and startled by rattlesnakes. Not every time and not all in one venture. Oh, and I forgot to mention the spiders. But that's not the point.

There is something very therapeutic for me to have my little bucket, find the safe dry space to plonk my behind, and gather with joy this goodness that has come from the earth free of charge. I'm outside and the air is fresh. The simplicity of the action. The simplicity of the concept. The repeated little motions reaching for the fruit, and the slow, unhurried movement from one choice spot to another, gradually filling to a deep blue mound of goodness and grace.

I've said this before, but blueberries remind me of God's grace. I have not done one thing to earn or deserve these berries, or the joy of their gathering. I did not plant these bushes or prune them or weed around them. I did not water or fertilize. I didn't even purchase the land on which these berries grow. I only go out to get them on beautiful summer mornings. Undeserved. Yet I am rich in blueberries!!

Likewise, I am rich in being forgiven and accepted. The intimacy I can experience with the King of the Universe comes through grace. I don't earn it. I did nothing to deserve it. I only reach out to take it; in the blueberry patch, on the deck, in my soul.

Okay, because I know you're wondering. My only encounter with a bear was me inside and him outside. I saw him through the window, and not out alone in a blueberry patch. He was easy to scare away, a good indication that he is not an agressive bear, or so says that nice lady from the Bear Wise hotline.

Still, my berry picking will be rather restricted this year. Only our shoreline patches will be visited. And closer to the middle of the day rather than early in the morning or any time after supper. But no matter.

The abundance of berries doesn't require foraging any deeper.

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