Fearless Faith

When it comes to fruit trees, patience is perhaps the largest hurdle. After five years of gentle coaxing, three small apple trees have declared that this will be their breakout year. A couple dozen apples last year were reason enough to raise the hope of forward progress, but we were pleasantly surprised that this year’s crop is well over two hundred. The apples might not be perfect, but they represent a victory of patience nonetheless.

My history with apples is long. I loved the smell of apples cooking in my grandparent’s kitchen and knowing that something wonderful was close behind. Dumplings, cobblers, crisps, or lightly-sweetened applesauce became the reward for picking up fruit from four large trees on our place. There were always more apples to “work up” than could be managed. The task of picking up the windfalls and bruised fruit fell to the youngest family members, a death sentence in the minds of kids preoccupied with more important tasks like chasing the dog or building dirt roads in the garden. More than a few unusable apples made it over the hedge in the back yard, a move that had us apologizing to the neighbor whose garage wall was on the other side. Rotten dried apples take a long time to wash off of siding.

My grandmother never met an apple she could not pare down for cooking, worms notwithstanding. She was all business when it came to using a cone-shaped colander, all the while gritting her teeth and working the wooden pestle as if there was no tomorrow. There was always enough frozen applesauce on hand to carry through the winter and spring months until apples were once more in season in late summer.

Interestingly, the apple has long been associated with the traditional telling of events in the Garden of Eden. Although the apple is named elsewhere in the Bible, you will not find it in relation to the biblical characters Adam and Eve. I first became acquainted with that information when a Sunday School teacher dared to share that reality with me. I became even more concerned when different creation stories were recounted, as well as inconsistent versions of Noah and the Ark.

Fast forward to New Testament writings and one is apt to find their patience tried. Cartoonish coloring book figures depicting very clean and very white disciples of Jesus do our teaching of Biblical history to our children no favors. Do we have the patience needed to be more exacting in what is taught and in what manner? The Bible can be a tough read. It should never be distributed without an owner’s manual in my humble opinion. How we interpret scripture is no small matter. A few questions before reading actual content; Who is the author or authors? When was it written and for what purpose? From what culture did the scripture arise? Does it still represent good fruit or outmoded understandings? Is it from a single writer or multiple authors?

As apples go, it takes more that a season or two to recognize and appreciate the fruits of our labor (pun intended). It also pays to have patience when applying biblical teachings to everyday life. A successful apple crop doesn’t hurt either.