Vineyard

Vineyard by Mike Hamilton

This past weekend my wife and I were on a small four day 10th anniversary getaway.  We flew to California and had some time in a house overlooking a beach just north of San Francisco.  There was no TV.  There were no places to eat near by, the road to the house was winding and took a while to get to and from…the trek back to town was the same.  Within moments my wife was rolling the windows down, gripping her seat and asking me to slow down because of her motion sickness.  So we remained at the house most of the time.  And in a house that you rent, with no TV, near nothing to keep you occupied you find yourself actually settling in to relax.  Relaxing settles into relief and then relief finally makes its way to Rest.  We went to bed late, we woke up late.  We ate good food that was bad for us, we had wine, I ate cheese, I failed to put on my jogging shoes other than to go to the hot tub.  By the second day I was wondering if I could go without shaving, forgot my deodorant and sat around a good portion of the day in my shorts…shirtless…sockless…..shaved-less.

Hours into the second day my wife and I were cramming bits of foods into our faces that weren't designed to sustain life.  Popcorn…chocolate….almonds….covered in chocolate….granola….with bites of chocolate…chips, hot sauce, cheese…..and of course chocolate chip cookies, big fat chocolate chips burgeoning out of the cookie.  We took naps, we yawned, we played games.  Then we went hiking in the Muir woods and got "lost".  Our trail was supposed to be 2.6 miles and somehow we failed to realize the "loop" was actually three intersecting trails making a "loop".  Somewhere about the time we surfaced to find a road….a road mind you…..we realized that we were in fact WAY off the trail.  You don't easy find your way outside the Muir Woods and bump into a road.  All I could think of at that point was "Ugh, we are going to have to backtrack the way we came….."  All 1.8 miles of it…..I run half marathons for fun…….and I found myself dreading this 1.8 mile walk through the Muir Woods.

Then our hotel.  We left Muir Beach and made out way up to Healdsburg to visit some friends at a winery.  We check into our hotel and I begin to notice some odd things.  Unfortunately, odd about myself.  I'm miffed that the shower is a European style shower open to the bathroom with no barrier to keep the water from spaying all over the bathroom.  And then there was this odd little window floor to ceiling, maybe 5 inches wide IN THE SHOWER to the OUTSIDE of the hotel.  It was "frosted" but you could still see very clearly a blurred version of a human through it.  And then those dang manufactured floors, clip clop clip clop clip clop, so noisy and the grand finale……a bed so soft and full of down that you sank as soon as you jumped in it.  The bed was too soft.  I keep having to say that in my mind to this day….the bed was too soft.  The window was too ill placed.  The lack of shower barrier was too messy.  The road was too winding.  The hot tub was 35 steps down from the house.  My face was too much to shave.  The hike was 1.8 miles too long.

Then we met our friends.  They bought us a meal and allowed us to partake in a wine tasting and a tour of the vineyards.  And then it hit me….when they said "Yeah, the soil we grow the vines in isn't considered the best soil, it needs to be slightly rocky, shallow in depth, soil which might be considered to be poor to grow other things is perfect to stress the grape vine.  When the grapevine is stressed it will produce smaller fruit and concentrate the flavor and sugars into a smaller cluster of grapes.  Vines that produce lots of big grapes on many big clusters would make for a terrible wine." (I'm taking non-technical non-winemaker paraphrasing liberties here)

I loved our vacation.  Wouldn't have changed a thing honestly.  Though I was struck by how quickly a human can begin to complain when things are comfortable and easy.  Clearly we would not choose to vacation in Palestine during an Israeli siege just to make ourselves grow on vacation.  I think vacations should be so comfortable that you begin to complain about the temperature of your eggs in the morning.  We all need the break.  I just thought it was interesting the contrast God drew for me on this vacation.  Our world is poor soil, it is full of things that should and does at times kill our souls, our hearts, our marriages, relationships, etc.  And any good vineyard owner knows that to create an amazing, robust wine, you must carefully stress the plant, prune it at the end of a season and put it into a climate that allows it to be protected from heat and drought during the growing season (comfort).

Stress it, comfort it, prune it, let it grow.  Stress it, comfort it, prune it, let it grow.  God does this.  The master viticulturist planting us in soil that isn't so great to create a wine that can't be ignored…a wine that can be enjoyed.  We weren't created to live in comfort here.  We were created to give a darkened world a light to look at, a robust thick wine to be savored and enjoyed.  But so often our hearts are so committed to comfort at the cost of anything else, committed more to comfort than reality or relationships or our own families, that we sit ourselves into fertile soil and cast away the pruning shears and demand to be fed with fertilizer and good clean abundant water.  All the while producing huge grapes with no flavor leading to our lives becoming tasteless, pale wines that do not turn a head.  We are bottom shelf wines with screw top lids.  Nothing in the world will even stop to look our way much less want to inquire as to how we became so richly flavored.

We were meant to have seasons, comfort, stress, pain, loss, growth and pruning and in the end a story that we can share that will make others thirsty for more.  The place I sit with my clients isn't "my life has been perfect and yours can be too"….there is not hope in that place.  My place is a place of suffering and brokenness that gives my story meaning.  It gives my story depth and a place from which I can speak and love in ways that I couldn't have if I were sitting comfy my entire life.  I am a man who has many bandages and scars, a limp and a wounded heart…I have been stressed and pruned and grown to the point that I have no choice but to submit to being crushed and served over to a world who might enjoy me and wonder about who made me this way…..that is our calling.