Summer's End

What do a sixteenth century painter and a herdsman who lived eight centuries before Christ have to do with a basket of summer fruit?



Caravaggio lived in the late 1500s. He painted people. He painted fruit. He even painted people with fruit. He painted fruit with wormholes, rotten spots, and scab lesions. His paintings were so realistic that modern horticulturalists can diagnose fungal pathogens, nutrient deficiencies, and the presence of specific bacterium with long Latin names. He wasn't above painting a fly on the fruit either. He painted fruit at the end of its season, fully ripe and ready for the taste test.



Amos was a herdsman and fig farmer around the year 785 B.C. He was not one of the guild prophets, but was called by God to prophesy. He had four major visions, and one of them was about fruit.

1 Here is what Adonai ELOHIM showed me: there in front of me was a basket of summer fruit. 2 He asked, "'Amos, what do you see?" I answered, "A basket of summer fruit." Then ADONAI said to me, "The end has come for my people, I will never again overlook their offenses.

No great stretch of the imagination is needed to bring the term "ripe for destruction" to mind while reading Amos's vision. Likening the imminent judgment to a quickly decaying basket of summer fruit is a strong visual metaphor. Although Amos was sent specifically to the Northern Kingdom and the most literal meaning of his message applied to those ten tribes of Israel, summer fruit is seasonal and a new crop grows up each year.

The injustices committed by oppressors, the selfishness of the powerful, and an emphasis on materialism—the very things that brought judgment then, are still found in abundance in our society today. But that is not really news, and this blog will not become a political or religious harangue.

Rather, in my life along the rabbit trail, I have come to understand that when people achieve their goal by perverting justice, when people can achieve their end by making false accusations, and when people see only the material and exclude the spiritual, the result is a devaluation of righteousness.

Righteousness makes a nation great. We have God's word on that: Righteousness exalts a nation, Proverbs 14:34. Conversely, the devaluation of righteousness debases a nation.

This last day of summer (in the northern hemisphere) is a good day to inspect fruit before God decides it is time to add to his compost pile.






~ Scripture from Amos 8:1, 2; Complete Jewish Bible online
Footnotes in many translations point out the play on words with Hebrew words for end [Hebrew: ketz קֵץ ] and summer [Hebrew: kayitz קַיִץ ] fruit sound similar

Two Towers Stumped - A 9/11 Lesson

I arrived at church this morning thinking thoughts of 9/11, the 2001 version. From a church-goers perspective, that event had beefed the attendance and had created a congregation of two mindsets. Those who had confidence in their eternal salvation were thinking eschatologically, while those who lacked such assurance were seeking hope for their souls.

Now, a decade further into world history, another fair September day, a special service had been set to focus on the current phase of mankind's long war against God and God's prophesied plan for the restoration of Israel.

I was walking up to the front doors when I saw it. Another two towers had fallen, chopped down by another intentional act of violence. These two towers were trees. For as long as I have attended this church, I have watched these two trees grow. Last spring they were a delight to see as their leaves emerged in perfect symbolic cadence with the Resurrection season. This summer they had been a joy as the trees were finally large enough to offer serious protective shade for after-church chatting. Now they were gone. Two stumps greeted the worshipers that day.

I asked if they had been diseased. I had not noticed any disease, but sometimes an insect attack can take out healthy trees in just days. No, the answer that I received was that they were tired of raking leaves!

I am pretty sure they destroyed over a thousand dollars worth of property value by hewing down those two trees. If these trees had been lost as a result of a storm or by vandalism, there surely would have been an insurance benefit. The International Society of Arboriculture uses a copyrighted formula to determine the value of landscape trees. Texas A & M also has an appraisal method. Both take four things into consideration when determining value, and the two trees at my church would have rated well on all counts.
• Size – Trunk diameter is measured a couple feet above ground level. This would have been a little tricky because the trees were an ornamental that grew in a clump. They had grown almost ¾ of the way to their mature 40' spread.
• Species – From what I have been able to determine on a web search, these were bore-resistant ornamental trees, valued for landscaping.
• Condition – I have never seen the roots, but the above ground structural integrity seemed fine. If leaf loss was a problem, I will comment on that later.
• Location – The placement, functional and aesthetic contributions of these trees were wonderful. The root systems did not threaten sidewalks or parking lots. They had exfoliating bark that added interest even in winter.

The Lesson – Weary of raking leaves.

One cannot grow trees, children, or churches by getting tired of raking leaves

All year long our church has been proclaiming "The Year of New Beginnings." Every week the people have been met with a visual of a seedling to promote the concepts of refreshment and renewal. Our pastor is on a much needed sabbatical this month. Apparently the men in charge of grounds keeping need a sabbatical too. What will they do when that new seeding gets big enough to shed its leaves?

Leaf fall is part of the normal cycle for deciduous trees. When drought comes, a tree will shed its leaves early as a defense mechanism to save itself. When a tree is losing leaves in August instead of October, the answer is not to run for the nearest chainsaw. The answer is to get out the hosepipe and give it some water, for crying out loud!

Our congregation's stated vision is to restore abundant life. That takes water, not an axe.

I am positive that no one was "led" of the Holy Spirit to cut down those trees. I highly doubt anyone even prayed about it. If they did, tell me and I will come back and print a retraction.

The trees did not chop themselves down. They were not "asking for it" either. By dropping their leaves, they were only protecting what God had given them. If I were in charge, I would not let anyone touch those stumps! If by some miracle they put out new shoots in the spring, I would let them grow. It would be a bittersweet reminder of what happens to lives that are destroyed by other fools and of how God is faithful.