Blackberry Season

This year, the blackberries were abundant, but . . . there were two problems.  I've already mentioned that there are black bears in the area.  Black bears like blackberries and they've been spotted in many places in this area.  I was watching the berries ripen and they were due to be "perfect" the weekend my daughter came to visit.  She arrived on a Thursday afternoon, after taking the seriously long route, yet I digress.  When she arrived she was absolutely enthralled with all the berries they had seen on the lane, but since it was so late, we'd wait until tomorrow to go picking.

When we went to pick the next afternoon, to our disappointment, the ripe blackberries I'd had my eye on were simply gone.  She looked at me and asked if someone else had picked what she saw yesterday.  My response was "apparently."  Since I do have neighbors and part of the lane is just a general easement, I thought and hoped perhaps someone else had been there.  We'd joked about bears last year, but with all the photos of nearby sightings, it's no longer a joke!  As we walked home rather disappointed, until I could talk with the neighbors, I found myself rather glad we weren't down there picking in the late evening.  Even if the berry harvest was meager, I'd prefer that to running into the mama bear and her cubs that had been video recorded about a mile away.

In addition to sharing the bounty of blackberries with bears, there was another problem this year that really got me thinking about our latest trend in religiosity.  This area has received more rain than usual, and out of it's "season."  Now we didn't have the flooding of many areas, but we did have enough that I actually have had to mow pasture that is also being grazed.  The out of season rain seemed to really affect the flavor of the berries.  Blackberries are my absolute favorite, and I'll endure serious heat and sweat for those wonderfully nutritious bursts of flavor, but this year . . . eh, not so much.  I made my famous blackberry buckle, adding a bit of extra sugar and I actually said aloud, "this needs blackberry flavoring!"  If I were hungry, I'm sure I'd have a different attitude, but I'm not.  This is where I began to think about all of religious information, but so much of it has no savour or flavor.  I'm not talking about treats and sweets, but the taste of truth is being watered or so overloaded with extraneous information to sort through, the truth is hard to find.

So often, I find myself hearing, "Oh taste and see, YHWH is good."  As I considered these beautiful bountiful berries that the bears are eating up, I couldn't help but think of "the form of godliness" that looks good on the outside, appeals to the masses seeking feel good entertainment, but lacks substance.  This year the blackberries were watered down, and definitely in many of our nation's religious teachings, the truth of The Word has been watered down.  I can't help but wonder if the watering down, the additional knowledge, or the extra entertainment has had the same effect on our society that this year's blackberry season had on me? . . . eh, never mind.