Harvest Moon

Last weekend we revived an old family tradition in which everyone – hunters, non-hunters, moms, dads, grandmas, toddlers, teething babies, restless teens, and anxious dogs get in a truck packed to the hilt with hunting garb and guns and head to eastern South Dakota for Opening Pheasant Weekend (OPW) – capitalized because the weekend is sacred. No family member can get sick, nor are they allowed to get married on this most holy weekend.

We took off Friday at 6:30, after Megan returned home from chauffeuring 3 ride-less kids home from school to various parts of Rapid City. Both kids looked forward to the night drive, especially Megan. “I love night driving so much you don’t even know”. The gentle hum of the warm truck and the enveloping blanket of stars invite the mind to wander and wonder.  After about 3 hours of traveling, we came upon a rich, inviting sight: a harvest moon; low, golden. I broke the silence. “Where did the name ‘harvest moon’ come from anyway?” I googled, and found that the full moons around the autumnal equinox come earlier than other full moons, meaning, there is no long period of darkness between sunset and moonrise. Farmers used to use the moonlight to bring in their crops during harvest season. Under the harvest moon, they could continue being productive even after the sun had set.

On Saturday I had the joy of seeing a good friend of mine from high school, Deb; we hadn’t seen each other in 20 years. It didn’t take long before old feelings revived; with her I was calm, confident, carefree. The sun had set on our time together in high school, but it was meaningful reconnecting with her under the moonlight of the harvest moon. Before Saturday, an imaginary strand that partially lined the round moon was attached at the top, lined the left side, but was dangling; pulled down by the gravity of lives moved on. The strand met weightlessness and fully encircled the bulging moon; and tied itself to the strand already at the top when we were recalling how our friendship came about in the first place.

An old family tradition, revived; even if only for one weekend. A  friendship, long detached, now come full circle, with rejuvenated hopes of learning more about what has shaded the inside of the strands over all of these years.  The zeitgeist of the time when farmers needed the harvest moon to illuminate their work has changed; traditions in that time died hard and friends stayed connected. Now, we need the harvest moon to illuminate the way to things we still hold dear but get lost in our daily shuffle.

Do you have relationship or a tradition upon which the sun has set; the chapter has closed? One that is aching to come full circle?  I had the joy of four coming 'round this year. I’ve got another one on my mind. My challenge to you: be intentional about bringing one back around before next year’s OPW. The light of the harvest moon will show you the way.---alg

Authentic Fruit

The pastors of our church are teaching for six weeks on the topic “Designed to Bear Fruit”. It reminded me of a staff meeting from a few months ago. Yeah, really.

Sandi Vojta, the winemaker for Prairie Berry winery, where I work, was trying to help us understand why the very same wine can taste different from one vintage (release) to the next.  Customers often ask this question.  

She told us that South Dakota fruit changes much season to season because of extreme weather variations. She uses as much South Dakota fruit as possible in making her wines, so this is an important factor. She explained that there is a way to chemically alter the properties of the fruit in order to produce wine that tastes similar year to year. This is what most large wineries do, because customers expect consistency in a brand. However, she chooses to preserve the authenticity of the fruit, with its variations and idiosyncrasies, in the wine. When you taste a bottle of her wine, you taste the fruit the way it was when picked. Therefore, a “Brianna” wine from 2009 may not taste the same as a “Brianna” wine from 2010.

I began to consider how this is a beautiful picture of the fruit that God produces through us. In John 15:5, Jesus identifies himself as the Vine; we are the branches that bear fruit.

“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you [are] the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit, for without Me you can do nothing”. John 15:4-5 (NKJV)

The fruit He is referring to here, which we bear, or bring forth, is authentic. He isn’t interested in us altering the fruit so that it resembles that of another person’s fruit. The fruit is unique because the bearer is unique. We tend to think it should be the same. We compare our fruit to that of others, and fear it doesn’t measure up, so we try to alter it to match. But He desires that our fruit be authentic. That when others “taste and see” the wine made of the real, genuine fruit, they will know God good, because that wine complements their palate.

So what makes fruit authentic? I think, that it resembles the best of the bearer - that is, God’s spirit in us motivating us to do good. It will have the unique sweet flavor of our gifts, abilities, and affinities. The sweet will be balanced with the unique tartness; even bitterness, of our pain and struggles. The right tartness blended with the distinctive sweet creates the full flavor of the specific kind of fruit. Did you know there are over 600 varieties of grapes? He didn’t create them to all taste the same.

So you see, if we have pre-conceived ideas about what fruit should look like, what it should taste like, we will chemically alter it by trying to please other people, or even trying to please God because we have this idea in our heads that He only likes zinfandel grapes, because zinfandel grapes do certain things and look a certain way. This limits us. It limits us because we cannot taste the joy of experiencing the profound effect we have on others just by being who we are.

Let your fruit be like a South Dakota grape: peculiar, odd, offbeat, authentic. Others are waiting; needing, to taste it.---alg

Haunted House

The house is dark; silhouetted by the light of the full moon behind.  Domineering iron gates guard the house; they guard the dirt walkway, the walkway overrun with weeds and shielded from view by the fog hanging near the earth, near the tombstones that are off to the right. Bats fly high in the moonlight, and low in the fog down between the tops of the tombstones and near the windows of the decrepit house. Green misty light pours out the windows, inviting timid creatures to peer in and look for movement.

The front door swings open with the breeze; inside, two couches face one another, both with well worn seats showing where friends once sat for evening conversation. A coffee table adorned with scroll edging has round imprints from mugs once filled with tea, coffee, hot cocoa.  Attached to the plaid couch with cobwebs sits an end table; on top, a photo showing a family; mom, dad, two girls, standing in front of a house bathed in sunlight. The dirt walkway lined with marigolds; cut green grass extended to the edge, and barely in the upper left hand side of the photo, blurred, leaves of a willow tree and on the right, two tips of an iron gate. The photo caught the essence of the moment that was: vitality, warmth, life.

Do you live in a haunted house?

A haunted house of your mind?

Do you hear voices that echo off the walls of your mind? You tell them to leave you alone, but they don’t.

Maybe a ghost lives there. You live in constant fear of whatever lurks around the corner.

Your past; your past hangs on your back like an iron saddle. The blood on the floor suggests perhaps it’s a vampire that makes his home there. He is over eight hundred years old; being immortal, and knows the intimate details of the lives of those he follows, as well as their parents and grandparents. His teeth have latched on to you, sucking the life out of you to sustain him with food.

Maybe a creature like Leatherface lives with you, firing his chainsaw, which inflames your fury. You live with your anger and it burns the pit of your stomach; sears your soul to the point of depression.

If it’s a demon of addiction, he chains you to your chair; tempts you with your drug of choice, then hurls insults at you, accuses you of being an unredeemable failure.

Or maybe, your houseguest appears to be a friend. Slowly, you discover it’s the witch of towering expectations; not the witch with a pointed black hat, but the wiccan witch who entrances you to believe you’re nothing if you don’t live up to them. You believe you are a constant disappointment to others; mainly, to God.

For me, it’s the red ants. That is, ANTS. Automatic Negative Responses, which I was taught, torment those people who lodge with chronic pain. I have always feared ants more than spiders. They lead you to think the worst, leaving you vulnerable to ghosts of fear that move through skin cells like osmosis.

No matter the face of the beast that bullies you, it’s always worse at night. The black bats that beat you down are nocturnal; the dark lures them out to begin their harassment.

What’s strange is, if you actually discovered you were living in a haunted house, you’d run. Sell the house if you could; burn it if there were no other options. Anything to escape the hell you have been living in.

So why do we sit in our haunted houses of the mind? Why do we get cozy there, trying to find tranquility by changing the décor instead of looking for doors? I once found a chair so comfortable that the spiders wove their sticky cobwebs around me for so long I could not get up.

Don’t wait that long. Get help. If you live in a haunted house, there is a way out. It takes time, hard work, and a little bit of surrender. The main thing is, you can’t do it on your own. Extend your arm through the cobwebs outside the window into the fog. There are people ready and able to help you. You are not doomed to live there forever. Let others pull you out; let them help you gut the house, clean out the cobwebs and show you some truth. A house restored is always more beautiful than it was before it was haunted.---alg

"Then I said to myself, 'Oh He even sees me in the dark! At night I'm immersed in the light!' It's a fact: darkness and light, they're all the same to you." Psalm 139, 11-12