thinning beans

My mom says that the smell of her childhood is oranges. Her grandfather and great-grandfather planted citrus orchards in Southern California, and she says she always liked it that she and her cousins all smelled like oranges. She missed that when my grandfather moved to a farm farther north, leaving orchards behind in favor of produce.

The sense of smell is very powerful, evoking memories more viscerally than the other senses.

I got to the church a little before 8 today and went up to the garden. We had maybe a ¼ inch of rain, and I hear that fell in about 10 minutes. But it was enough to do a better job than all our watering. No matter how much we watered, the peppers drooped a little. Now they are standing tall.

The beans and my request, cowpeas, came up pretty good, but thick. So I went out and thinned them a bit. That brought back a flood of memories. The dominant smells of my childhood are in California, the smells of the harvest—carrots, garlic, tomatoes, and beans. Many thousands of acres of each would be harvested and processed, and the air for miles would fill with the smell of whatever was being picked.

The beans fill the air with a complex smell, sweet and dull at the same time.

So, I think this will be a good day, the kind of day in ministry I like: varied. Thin out some beans while praying. Or pray while thinning out beans, as the case may be. Hang out with some kids eating lunch at the church. Meet with a student about ministry she wants to pursue here. Sit down with Hugues, a refugee from Congo, to translate some documents related to getting his wife and son over here. Visit in the neighborhood. Foti is back from his trip to Greece and it was good to sit with the fellow who thought the “whole idea” of church was ridiculous, but we win him over by good works in the community…

The garden is making progress more than we expected. It’s not just that stuff is growing. Rather, relationships are growing. Ron and David, who do the watering, have noticed this, have helped the relationships grow. David called it “microfellowship.” The planting and the on-going care of watering and weeding has brought different groups together—mostly people who don’t normally get together. That is, there were people in the church who came together to work who may not normally be together. And then there are people from the community who come out and wonder what’s going on. That’s what we really want to happen. The last thing we’re doing is growing tomatoes. They’ll be a nice bonus to the work of being together, and getting to know our neighbors.