I have taken a fancy to pull blackberries

I have taken a fancy to pull blackberries.

One would think that no sane person would relish at this chore. After all, wild blackberries are an invasive species, with thorns, hard to eradicate, and yes - the thorns hurt. Also, to add more injury to injury, you have to haul what you pulled away to be burned.

Still, I have taken a fancy to pull blackberries.

It usually starts with an “ankle grabber”. I am happily walking down (or up) a trail and ouch - a trailer has grabbed me. I look at my attacker and its friends and wonder how that patch got there and how did it grow so fast? I also wonder why it was foolish enough to grab my ankle. Does it not know that I am usually armed with long sleeves in the fall and thick, yellow leather gloves?

Yet, pulling blackberry vines still, to me, is rewarding. Perhaps I am thinking of a future sermon to share with campers based on my experience of turning a snarling blackberry patch once again into usable space.

Why are the older, thicker ones, in the center easier to pull? These are the ones most rewarding as you can see the patch visually diminish as it, and numerous trailers come out. Perhaps addressing some of our seemingly older, worse attributes, sins, and failings can yield so many blessings. Perhaps they are not as deep-rooted as one believes.

Then again, why are the younger vines harder to pull? I tug - and they snap - and I just know that they will grow again to present me with another ankle-grabber next year. Perhaps our current fads, and desire to fit in with the crowd are more deep-rooted than we care to acknowledge.

Yet the one thing I have discovered is that at the heart of every unwanted, unplanned-for blackberry patch is some event - a fallen tree limb, or a poorly planned wood-pile. Blackberries thrive on such events that alter the natural order. Such events occur in each one of our lives and if not come to grips with - can too, produce unwanted thorny vines.

I wonder if that ankle grabber knows that I - the blackberry puller - will work hard remove the event that led to the chaos of the blackberry patch.

Perhaps, the sermon is about Jesus being every ready and willing to do the same in the chaos of our lives.