Saturday, March 15, 2025
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Strawberries
This day the Lord commands you to observe these statutes and decrees. Be careful, then, to observe them with all your heart and with all your soul.
Yesterday was Pi Day, 3-14, and our hospitable apartment managers served us pizza pie and fruit pie, beginning at 3:14 pm in our beautiful apartment office beside the blue pool.
In the morning our friend Diane took us to pick strawberries, which has become an annual tradition with Miles and Jasper. The strawberry patch, Sweet Berry Farm, is just outside Marble Falls, Texas, where the Blue Bonnet Café serves pie all day, not just on the mathematical holiday.
For us March 14 also marked a loss for the Illini in the Big Ten Tournament (Thursday night’s win broke several records when the Illini beat Iowa 106-94, but this time they lost big to Maryland). And this was the day before Chris and Melissa’s family heads to Austin to see Jack and Aly’s newest cousin, Finn.
However, before they get on the plane Aly’s volleyball team made the Final Four on Friday and will be playing to win the state championship in potentially two games this morning and afternoon. The Sandels are a busy family!
The strawberry patch was wild with strawberries, and we picked 4 lbs. These straight-from-the-field red jewels don’t taste like those we buy all year long at HEB. These berries taste like the sun, and like the dirt they grow in, and like … well, fresh fruit. Like strawberries were made to taste. Like they must have tasted in the garden of Eden.
The juice from these bright red strawberries could substitute for blood and thus be used in the making of promises and covenants, between nations and families, between men and women. Like this one from the days of Moses:
Today you are making an agreement with the Lord: he is to be your God, you are to walk in his ways and observe his commandments and decrees. And today the Lord is making an agreement with you: you are to be a people peculiarly his own. If you keep all his commandments he will raise you high above all other nations in praise and glory. You will be a sacred people to your God.
You can make strawberry bread, and of course strawberry pie, adding a little rhubarb sometimes. I can taste strawberry shortcake made with Bisquick and topped with fresh whipped cream, melting in my mouth. Strawberry ice cream, when its full of the real thing, makes me happy. But these special strawberries we picked today might be best just eaten plain, small, sweet and juicy. The small ones taste the best.
Jesus said, “You have heard it said that you shall love your neighbor. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Children of your heavenly Father, he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.”
Perhaps Cain should have offered strawberries to God rather than grain, and our civilization would not forever after be cursed by war and bloodshed. God might have blessed those berries, and blessed Cain, and the dripping red juice would not have been equated with bloodshed. And Jesus would not need to tell us to love our enemies. We might have none.
Can you imagine that?
(Deuteronomy 26, Psalm 119, 2 Corinthians 6, Matthew 5)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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