The Gift of Strawberries

June is strawberry month here in our watershed! The plants bloom early in the month, and by the end, we enjoy fresh, ripe, red strawberries. 
​One of my favourite chapters in Braiding Sweetgrass is "The Gift of Strawberries." Robin Wall Kimmerer writes about how the abundance of wild strawberries in the spring is like a pure gift from the land, and tells a story of picking wild strawberries every June so her mom could make a strawberry pie for her dad for Father’s Day (happy Father’s Day!).
Strawberries grow close to the ground, teaching us about humility. Their runners reach out, starting new plants and forming community. They are first fruits, gifts of abundance, heart berries, a seasonal offering enjoyed by humans and more-than-human alike.
Robin Wall Kimmerer invites us to learn from strawberries - to see abundance rather than scarcity, and to see the world as made up of gifts. She suggests that “A great longing is upon us, to live again in a world made of gifts.”
This month in our worship time, we enjoyed and celebrated God's good gifts of abundance (not scarcity) in the ritual of communion, a feast that makes God's love edible. We shared elements of the earth (bread and wine and strawberries), sharing in abundance and reminding ourselves that these are God's good and beloved gifts, as are we! As always, we offered some of our communion feast back to the land and waters, in recognition of the ways the earth is also broken in these times. We commit to practicing resurrection in the way of the risen Christ!

Where do you see abundant gifts around you?
Where do you see brokenness?
How do you practice resurrection?
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