Last week, my children and I found a patch of wild blackberries growing in an empty lot down the street. We celebrated by picking as many as we could and heading home to make a scant batch of cobbler, throwing in some store bought nectarines to make them stretch. What southern summer joy! Naturally, every single evening since, they grab their old Easter baskets and clamor to go down to gather more. It’s getting so dreadfully hot out, and now the mosquitos have also found the blackberry patch. They’re too young to walk down the block alone, but intent on harvesting, so off we go. The adults’ enthusiasm is waning.
One afternoon this week, I was getting ready with a bad attitude, reluctant to be pricked and bitten and sweaty, when suddenly a stanza from Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Aurora Leigh came to mind with a chuckle: ““Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God, But only he who sees takes off his shoes; The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.” This 19th century poem offers a riff off of a scene from the Exodus story. In this biblical tale of how God freed the Hebrew people from their suffering and enslavement in Egypt, the divine presence inhabited a burning bush in the wilderness. This strange sight, a bush on fire but not burning up, was a sign and an invitation to a man named Moses. When he took notice of the odd plant and turned aside to look more closely, Moses started his journey of listening to God, and became the liberating leader of the people and a key figure in the Jewish and Christian religions.
Browning spins a vision of that sacred moment as immanent, present here and now, all of the time. Every common bush might become a sign of God’s invitation: the oak leaf hydrangeas and the goldenrod, the boxwoods and the privet and, yes the blackberry brambles. But only when we see the world in this way, crammed with heaven, will we turn aside like Moses, taking notice and hearing the call to honor holy ground. Otherwise we run the risk of just hanging out, plucking blackberries, oblivious to the wonder of God’s liberation and love all around us.
Each evening when we grab those baskets and head down to the patch, my children are asking me to “sit round and pluck blackberries.” But they’re also asking me to see that the empty lot, the hot summer evening, the thorns and tangles, are afire with God. Ages 3 and 5, picking their berries for summer pies for the very first time, the kids are full of awe and joy. They see and listen, and in their own way understand that the Holy presence of God and God’s invitation is just as alive in East Tennessee as in the wilderness of Midian. I can grouse about humidity and jump at the thought of a rat snake in the bushes, or I can join their wonder and take off my sandals at this holy ground.
“Earth’s crammed with heaven.”
Can we see?