What have I done today?

Other than talk to the carrots, that is.

By now, I should have the newsletter teaching completed, pasted in the latest news from the orphanage, recommended a new book, and dropped in a reminder to register for REVIVE and mention that a new bloc of discounted rooms for the conference is now available. I should have answered a dozen emails and a phone call. I should have cleaned my bike chain and lubed it. I should have made something fresh for Erev Shabbat instead of being happy with plating up leftovers. I should have sprayed the north side of the house with cleaner. I should have. Should have.

But I didn’t.

My mom of blessed memory called them the “Shouldsandoughts.”

I did blanch, cold-shock, and vacuum-seal four freezer bags of asparagus from the garden. And make a maple-bourbon-pecan sauce for the sweet potatoes for oneg tomorrow. After that, I went back to the garden. Seems like I always go back to the Garden when I’m in this state of mind.

Yesterday, I received word that Rick Daviscourt passed away, may his memory be for blessing. You may not know him. In fact, I never met him in person. We emailed and texted about Torah things and the ministries, how to support one another, but I can’t even remember how I first knew about his ministry. He has a girls’ home in Peru we support whenever we can, called Restoring Hope International. Rick was providing the girls a Torah-based home to be safe in.

On March 22nd, Rick knew his diagnosis and prognosis, and he sent out his final newsletter. He wrote:

“I want to thank all of you who have been praying for me and personally encouraging me through my battle with pancreatic cancer. Honestly speaking, most of us will struggle in one way or another in our lives. So, I really do not consider my struggle as being more important than the next person’s difficult struggle. I have met and continue to meet people who seem to have it much worse than what I am going through – even if they are enjoying perfectly good physical health. Life on this planet, unfortunately, causes great obstacles for many of us – sooner or later.

Even though my Whipple Surgery was successful in removing the tumor in my pancreas, it did not stop there. Now, after even more chemotherapy, this cancer has spread to different areas of my liver and continues to spread in that organ. I have been given 6 months to live.

I am so grateful to our Creator for having given me this many years of life, most of which have been happy and productive for me! In several weeks, I will turn 67. And many of you have greatly helped to enrich my life’s experience through your support and encouragement. You are so appreciated!

Being able to work with God in starting our children’s home in Peru has been such an honor and privilege for me. What an adventure that has been!

With respect to those who are dealing with serious illnesses, etc…, I would like to reference the Book of Job, in the Old Testament. Neither he nor his friends had the least little idea as to why he, Job, became so ill and lost so much, including his children. His supposed friends were accusing him of this and of that – all of which were untrue. His wife told him to curse God and die… Also, it is very important to take into account what the apostle Paul wrote in Romans 8:28 to the end of that chapter. First of all, a person cannot come to God – to Christ – unless God calls and draws that person to our Savior and Messiah. That person must love Him, God, with all his/her heart and soul (Deuteronomy 11:13). In my case, I have dedicated my life – both internally and externally to this end. I remember very well, the morning when our Lord invited me to give my life to Him. I will never, ever forget that special moment. So, as many of you already know, there are no easy “Canned Answers” to many of the complex issues of our lives and world. Some things are not for us to know…”

Day before yesterday, Rick was heavy on my heart, and I wasn’t sure why. Prayer is the only option at such times, and I sent a donation, not knowing anything additional I could do. Yesterday I found out he’d passed away. So that was it. Can you grieve over a person you’ve never met face-to-face?

So today, I went to the garden. I pulled suckers from the tomatoes, nodded to the poblanos, anchos, and jalapenos to keep up the good work, and guided the cucumber vines up their cages. I kneeled and picked away the weeds from the beets and carrots by hand because they’re too young and tender for the hoe. I suggested that they get a move on with their growing so they’d be easier to deal with. I’m getting too old and stiff to crawl around in the dirt. Did they have any idea why good people like Brad, Rick, Charles, and Mark left us so soon? No, they didn’t, but I left them in neat rows to think about it. Some things are not for us to know, remember?

The cranberry beans, green beans, and Jacob’s cattle didn’t have any answers, either, but they endured the hoe without too much complaining. The cantaloupes and watermelons were pretty quiet, too. Just sat there and yellow-flowered me, which I take as a grin. The potatoes needed some shovel work, which I think they appreciated. I told them to give me a holler if they saw any of those striped beetles. It looked like something chewed the tomatillos, but they’re tough, and they get tougher as the summer wears on. I’ve picked tomatillos even after a light frost.

You’d like my homemade salsa verde.

Then I hoed the other garden with the corn and purple hull peas and butternut squash. I noticed some of the pole beans I’d planted to grow on the corn stalks were breaking the surface. The Three Sisters garden. They were all coughing dust, though. We need a good rain. Good rain. Not a gully-washer.

Even the weeds weren’t too committed to the heavy clay. The purple hull peas have been passed down from my grandpa. My Uncle Jimmy gave me some to get started years ago. He started his from Grandpa’s. We’re not sure how many generations they go back. I just thought you’d like to know that. Most of them are in the Garden now. My relatives, not the peas. With Rick. And Brad. And Charles. And Mark. If I had to have a last meal, I think it would be purple peas and cornbread and sliced tomatoes and watermelon. Funny how people on death row get to pick a last meal, but the saints, not usually. Maybe none of them would have a taste for it anyway.

I finished up by checking the sweet potatoes and raised beds. All good. Sweet strawberries, but they’re not big talkers, and you have move the leaves away to find them and get them before the ants do. “Consider the ant, thou sluggard.” I doubt a sluggard would be reading Proverbs anyway. So here I am considering the ant. Not to worry. They don’t eat much.

Tomatoes are volunteering in the strawberry, asparagus, and onion beds. You have to weed them out, but I leave a couple. I think they’re the little yellow pear tomatoes. Later in the summer, it’s like candy on the vine.

The sun chokes are getting tall. They’ll make pretty yellow flowers as tall as the sunflowers I let grow around the bird feeders. It’s too early for persimmon and pawpaw fruits to set, but the apple trees look good. It will be a race to see whether the deer will clean out the fruit from the lower branches before we do. The fig tree is spreading, and even though I thought the new cherry tree was dead, I see a little branch sprouting out the bottom. A definite maybe.

Some things are not for us to know. Yet.

Memories must do for now. Ever notice how deeply the grooves are cut into the record of memories? No wonder records used to get stuck and just go round and round. Like today. When you can’t concentrate, you concentrate.

Like Rick wrote, a “Canned Answer” would be an insult to both the deceased and their Creator. When great, righteous people are transplanted into the Garden, they deserve our continued wonder. We should challenge our own ideas about what we “deserve” quantified in mere years and whether what can be accomplished there is somehow of less value than what we can accomplish here. Maybe the goodness there is exactly what they deserve, and because we see only the carrot top, and the deep red strawberries hide from us, we struggle round and round.

This week, our Torah portion Bamidbar includes a census of the tribes for war. The army of Israel is not like other armies. Israel must first “pass muster” with Adonai Tzvaot, the Lord of Armies. When Israel falls into idolatry and other serious sins, their army is usually defeated, even routed shamefully. Israelite soldiers must pass a test of courage even before they are admitted to the ranks:

Have you betrothed a wife, but not married her? Go home.
Have you built a house, but not lived in it? Go home.
Have you planted a vineyard, but not consumed its fruit? Go home. (Dt 20:3-8)

Such a person is planning to fail! He started with good plans, then at some point, he could not envision a successful outcome, one of the jobs we accomplish in prayer-work. If he fell in battle, then someone else would marry his wife, live in his house, and tend his vineyard. In fact, both the “house” and the “vineyard” are sometimes used as euphemisms for a wife, the wise woman and the Proverbs 31 woman who builds the house and is the fruitful vine. The wife, in turn, symbolizes the work of the Holy Spirit in his life (see Workbook Four). The Ruach (Spirit) is what implants successful vision within a believer.

Relating this to the No Place for Chickens Part Two last week, the spiritually deficient soldier did well at first, planning and imagining his life in the future, but when the enemy approached, he was unable to also plan and envision a victorious outcome to his prayer. This cowardice would become a cancerous discouragement to his fellow soldiers. A soldier planning a desolate house will be rewarded with a desolate house, for he does not remember the exhortation of the war priest:

“Hear, O Israel, you are approaching the battle against your enemies today. Do not be fainthearted. Do not be afraid, or panic, or tremble before them, for the LORD your God is the one who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.” (Dt 20:3-4)

If the soldier cannot go forward with confidence after that reminder, he’s hopeless in battle!

In the following lament over Jerusalem, Yeshua evokes two important passages in the Torah:

1) the Ruach Adonai hovering over the surface of the waters at Creation and (Ge 1:2)

2) the torah of the hen and chicks, which assures the chicks’ safety if they will stay under their mother’s wings or in the nest with her. (Dt 22:6)

The Jewish sages say that the Ruach hovering over the Creation waters was Messiah, whose obedience would bring order out of chaos, light out of darkness. The verb used for “hovering” is merachefet, which describes how a mother bird beats her wings violently to call her chicks. Also in the tradition, the palace of King Messiah is located in the Garden of Eden. It is called Kan Tzippor, or “The Bird Nest.” King Messiah’s job is to gather the Father’s chicks back into the Garden, to minister the Word to them so that they can be restored to their original habitat. Frequently, the chicks are obstinate:

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate! For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, ‘BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!’” (Mt 23:37-39)

What can be derived from Yeshua’s lament?