Of pear-shaped pears, and mold-shattering Mystery

But we make His love too narrow by false limits of our own;

And we magnify His strictness with a zeal He will not own.

For the love of God is broader than the measure of the mind;

And the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind.

---There's a Wideness in God's Mercy

   F.W. Faber, 1854

My son's girlfriend has begun a career in agriculture, and knows fascinating things about vegetable and fruit propagation. It is so enjoyable to sit around the supper table and talk about 'plant' stories we've seen on television, or read online, or heard on NPR. Of course, Jess' relation to this information is often either through direct observation or experience, so we get an insider's take on it. Last night we were enjoying a delicious King o' the West honeydew (the only kind I will buy --- trust me), and talking about the trend in Japanese agriculture of growing melons in crates, thus making them stackable for ease in shipping, and to fit them into the compact refrigerators common in much of that country. Jess told us, that, on a summer agricultural trip to China, she had observed orchard workers painstakingly fixing molds in the shape of Buddhas and other popular characters around growing pears on the limb. When mature, this shaped fruit would fetch many times the price of, say, pear-shaped pears.

The text from this amazing hymn hints at an action similar to what Jess saw in China, but we often are not conscious of doing it. God's love for us, and mercy on us, are so vast, so limitless, that our minds cannot contain the knowledge of this God. So, rather than live with the Mystery of a love beyond our understanding (and beyond our controlling), we remake God...in our own image. We make God with a human amount of love, and a human limit to that love. We put a human-shaped mold around God. And we end up with a human-shaped idol instead of the vast Love that is our God.

What a shame, that we cheat ourselves. All for a watermelon that fits in the fridge.

...though the earth should change

God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear,
though the earth should change...
     ---from Psalm 46

The world of Psalm 46 is fearsome --- full of natural disasters, the man-made disaster of war, and, most of all, 'change'. When has the earth changed for you? Was it tsunami, wildfire? The Gulf War Syndrome or Traumatic Brain Injury that have followed our fighting men and women home from war? The darkness we mark today, when terrorists flew planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Centers? The day 50 years ago when cowards in Birmingham set off bombs that took the lives of four little girls, and the dogs and fire-hoses were unleashed on the youth of the city? Or has your earth changed more privately? Beloved friend or family member wasting away with cancer? A child wandering away, or stolen by violence or needless early death? A failure at work or betrayal in marriage?
Obviously, our belief in God didn't protect us from these disasters of circumstance, of nature, of hatred, of gaps in medical knowledge; nor were we protected from our questions about how these things happen to 'good' people in God's world.
In this 46th chapter of Psalms, though, God is described as 'refuge', 'strength', 'help', 'presence', 'with us'. Right here, right now, in the midst of our troubles, God is present with us. When the earth changes, God is with us. When the whole world seems to shake with the portent of evils now or yet to come, God is with us.
Be still; acknowledge God's presence. When we need to hide from the changes and be quiet, God is here --- refuge, strength, help. God is here with us.