Friday July 17, 2020
John Tabor
Give
Plant 'em in the spring eat 'em in the summer
All winter without 'em's a culinary bummer
I forget all about the sweatin' & diggin'
Everytime I go out and pick me a big one
Homegrown tomatoes home grown tomatoes
Wha'd life be without homegrown tomatoes
Only two things money can't buy
That's true love and homegrown tomatoes
Guy Clark
This old song never fails to bring a chuckle because it is so true. If you have tomato plants like I do, you can’t wait for picking time. Sure, you can buy those bouncy round things at the grocery store, but they taste like a pale imitation of the real thing – that glorious fruit that fits in your hand, heated by the summer sun, tugged off the vine and rich with flavor.
The purest things in life are best. Those homegrown tomatoes thrive on the trinity of God’s sunlight, water and soil to ripen to perfection. True love needs its own trio: the sun of devotion, the soil of acceptance and faith where roots grow, the water of daily caring.
In the Bible, Jesus gave of himself in miraculous ways – restoring Lazarus for Martha and Mary, feeding a crowd with loaves and fishes. Manifestations of his love both intimate and public.
Is a homegrown tomato any less of a small miracle? Isn’t it a gift to us from God? Aren’t we blessed to be given something so pure and good? We give them our care and oh, how we are rewarded. And aren’t we blessed to be able to love as Jesus did, and glimpse the divine in our lives when we find true love? But that too, takes our tending and care.
As we give of ourselves to others, we plant in the spring, and as sure as God’s love makes the world go around, summer’s glory comes back to us from that giving. Like the subjects of the song, those are purest things in life. Happy summer!