a l i v e & a w a k e

Once I was given a picture by someone that seemed pretty plain. I read their explaination for giving me this and it became alive and it still has me very deep in thought. The picture was a painting called "The Gleaners".

The plain scene and dull colours are purposeful in depicting the emotion of the women in the field 'gleaning' the crops. The write up beside the picture from a friend we'll call 'Doctor Love' read like this;

"At the end of the day, we often feel like those sad looking workers in Jean Millet’s painting that are stooping over attempting to pick up what looks like.......well, practically nothing.   The typical feeling is one of hacking a path through dense jungle with a machete.  We focus on the work and forget that maybe there are others waiting behind us to follow in our footsteps; folks who need a road even more than do — imagine that!"

 

The Harvest

The harvest has already been taken in. Others have gone before some time ago and have reaped the golden, bountiful crop. They celebrate as their barns are full and rightfully so because the harvest was ready and they were there to take it in. The farmers didn't take it all in, but the effort to go back and 'glean' the rest would be wasteful and they have enough for winter. These women don't and/or are not going to let perfectly good seed and sustanance go to waste.

The Field

What was once teaming with golden practical riches, now lays trodden, reaped and barren. The dirt now is exposed and the wind can touch the earth which was once before protected and sheltered. The birds of the air can see clearly into the soil and the farmers are walking away from a land that can not offer anything else to them. The use of the land has served it's purpose for this season, and maybe the attention will be given back to the region once it shows potential for use once again. This seems to be the cycle of this land. Slowly over time, over the years the soil is losing it's ability to give. It will produce once again but some care, rest, fertilizing, plowing, and planting will be needed before that can happen again. It is only given to, because it can give back and then left.

The Women

Are these women poor? Are they wise in their work? Have they been hired to 'glean' the field? Or have they snuck into the field at the exact moment the horses and carts moved to the barns in plain daylight? Regardless, their work is for what was left from the harvest. They are not dressed in the best of clothes and their posture, -stooped over- does not have dignity of women who would come from wealth. The wealthy have a way of carrying themselves differently. They leave themselves open for comment by all who see from the farm hands to the village people. If they are poor and granted access to the field, they are an example to all who watch because they have found value in a 'seemingly' barren field. The poor always have a way of finding value in wastelands or the metaphorical deserts in the wilderness. Their determination and attention to detail is not a value but a survival mentality. Yet that survival mentaliy puts them in possesion of valuable sustanace and potential fields of their own. The potential of what they grab makes them richer than what it seems, because what they hold could next year give there own field to harvest. The poor have a way of finding potential value in all circumstances, people and themselves. Maybe it is the farm hands who are 'rich' with the harvest can learn from these women -maybe we can too.

The Gleaner in Me

I have to say there is something 'holy' and truthful about this painting that speaks deeply to me. In a season of reflection (fall 2005), I have thanked God for His faithfulness to me in eleven years of ministry with 'youth at-risk'. In so many ways the parallels and lessons apply to the demographic of youth who have been used, overlooked, looked down on and they find themselves trying to 'glean' in their own way for something of value. That is not what speaks so deeply to me though.

It is the 'gleaner' in me that I am faced with. I am the land, I am the women, and I am the left over grain. At many times I feel God has allowed me, like the land, to produce amazing crops in my life, -in ministry, but now I have not much to offer and it is time to go through a winter and take comfort in being covered by a thick blanket of snow, to heal, to rest and to protect so that the gleaners don't take my last remnants and reminders of great harvest times. I need the rest.

I also have felt like the women who have worked and are still working with dilegence towards their survival and greater times. I have felt the benefit of this kind of discipline even though it means my efforts may be looked down on by others. They see me bent over, not having the best equipment and the parade of all those who took in the harvest. No one has come to help gather the measily remnant. There has just been a few who have seen this value with me. They are not my competition but coworkers. They are not my critics but my company. I can see the harvest in the back ground as others have been quite successful. This could be a reminder (and has been) of what I can not have in such abundance. Lately in my reflective state I see that harvest giving me vision that can not be touched. It is the vision of the seeds I have found, gathered and possess will soon be the huge mounds of harvest that will store and supply many. My fingers will get sore from repetative picking and bare scratches that come from stubble left by the harvest. My back will be sore from the constant bending and leaning. This is a position of humbleness and servanthood. Somehow as noble as this all seems, I complain and feel like all my best is being taken -even robbed of that which is necessary. Those are on the bad days when it seems the vision of the harvest has been stored away, out of sight and the heat has blurred the potential of what I hold.

My biggest fear is I think like all who are in ministry. Is what I am doing significant? Does it really help or hinder true and good growth. Has the heat gotten to my head? Do I have the energy to go on being bent over? Do my eyes and fingers hurt from the precision detail of the small harvest? Are my companions feeling the same?

I write this now with in my first full week of my new job as a 'lead' pastor. I am welcomed in the midst of adjustment and some uncertainty. I am also feeling great comfort from this painting "The Gleaners" because I realize that what I have learned,,, what God has implanted in my heart through the years of drop-in work with the marginalized is what will be a testimony to me and others through this work at The Meeting House Brampton. Jesus came to be the one to give abundant life, victory and transformation. Those who looked for successful 'harvests' saw a poor man with no home, positioned as a servant, and made to be physically broken up. They invested into more visable harvests of wealth and power. At times Christ probably fely like the land just being 'used' for His healings, food and words that tickled ears but didn't touch their hearts.

This is what I see God has for me in Brampton. To be the 'Gleaner', to be His gleaner that gathers and serves in a field that seemingly has no value. The work is not enough to keep me going but the presence and voice of Christ in this field who has some small seeds that need to be taken, blessed, cultivated and released to become a harvest in Brampton, in the heart of those I work with, and in my heart.  In this way the workers for the small harvest are in that which is being harvested in me and in the field. Look back at the overall painting,,, do you see the rich colours? Do you see the great potential?

-joe -Jan 06