Picking Raspberries

This summer we took the kids who come to our weekly Bible Club to a farm outside the city to pick raspberries. We wanted to give the kids an experience that most of them have never had before, to get out of the city, and get an idea of where their food comes from. After our Bible lesson we loaded up the vans and headed west out of the city on I-94. 45 minutes later we took the exit off the freeway. After a few miles the kids began to realize that they weren’t in Milwaukee anymore. The concrete sidewalks and rows of houses were replaced by barns, silos, and rows and rows of corn. They started asking questions. “Where are we?” “What is that?” “Where is everybody?” “Who lives out here?” As we drove on we just saw more and more fields. And then the horror movie references started coming out. “Jason lives out here!” (No, they were not talking about our pastor!) “I think I just saw Freddy!” “This is where the Texas Chainsaw Massacre happened!” Windows started to get rolled up. Doors got locked. I started to laugh as I explained how I grew up around a bunch of cornfields like the ones we were seeing. “But someone’s gonna come out of there and get us!” As we pulled into the farm the kids had convinced themselves that evil chainsaw wielding zombies would be coming out of the corn to decapitate us all. “We’re not getting out of the van!” After some convincing that no one was going to come murder us they began to get out. And we had an awesome time picking and eating raspberries. On the way home they talked about how cool it was to be on the farm and that it was so neat to see where the food came from. There was no more talk about evil zombies coming out of the corn to chop us into pieces.

Sadly, just as the kids had fear about the country, where they’ve never been, many people are scared of the city, where the kids live. The fear that zombies will come out of the corn is just as crazy to think as there’s nothing but drugs in violence in the hood. We all have fears of the things we don’t know. It’s different, so we put up walls and begin to think the worst. Our fears keep us away and separate us from those things we don’t know. But the kids from our Bible Club show us that when we take the time to experience what we’re afraid of, we might find something wonderful and beautiful. What we thought produced evil, scary murderers might actually produce the food that we need to survive. If we face the fears we have about the central city, we might find that what we thought was a dangerous, no good place, might actually lead us to loving, generous people who can teach us about life, and about God. Where are the places you don’t want to go, the people you don’t want to meet? Maybe you need to encounter the other, and find the beauty that God wants you to discover there.