Shade Tree Wisdom 5/17/09

Church picnic this afternoon. The sky is sort of gray and it drizzled a bit, but it is cooler than it has been, and I imagine the congregation is enjoying the afternoon together. No, we haven’t been going to things of this sort any more. It gets sort of busy and noisy and we relish the quiet more.

But the drizzle did remind me of a little ditty that stuck in my mind, I know not from where. It runs,

The rain it falleth on the just,
And also on the unjust fellow.
But more upon the just, because
The unjust stole the just’s umbrella!

That’s sort of a ‘tongue in cheek’ commentary on Matthew 5,45. But enough of such foolishness.

The picnic reminded me of days long gone when our home Church always had a 4th of July picnic. That was sort of end of school year and beginning of summer. The day began with a parade where the church brass band led the school children from the school to the picnic grounds. When we got there, our teachers gave us each some tickets good for an ice cream cone, candy, or whatever the tent had for sale for the crowd. Most families either ate lunch at home or brought their lunch along. The afternoon was spent listening to band music – and there is no sound quite like a brass band played in a grove of trees – playing games, and just visiting. Usually people ended checking the cemetery lots of their family and remembering days of old. Parents showing where the grandparents were buried and recalling their youth. (The picnic grounds were in a grove next to the church cemetery).

When the sun started to go down, it was time for evening chores. Life on a dairy farm consisted of regular morning and evening chores. Cows had to be milked and tended to whether one felt like it or not, the church picnic did not change that.

And I am writing this and thinking how much things change, and yet how much they remain the same. Because people still enjoy visiting, playing together, planning, and being grateful to God for His daily blessing.

St.Matthew had it right when He wrote in his Gospel, fifth chapter, 45th verse, God “Causes the sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on he righteous and the unrighteous”. Just a reminder of His promise that “as long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will never cease.” Genesis 8,22. What a rich, blessed God is ours by His grace, and He calls us ‘dear children’.
GPD 5/17/09