A MEDITATION (Continued): PECANS AND BANANAS

I had already taken my morning rounds and saw that the mother pigeon was all right and saw that both eggs had become birds. Having some extra time I purposed to take up a long-postponed chore and began to separate partially shelled pecans from their delectable meat. I would try to think of someone who needed prayer with each pecan processed. It worked for a while until I was blessedly distracted by the thought, “How thoughtful of God to prepare the pecan, covered with a protective shell and filled with nutritious and delicious meat.” Wow, God You thought of it all and showed us Your love in the strangest of ways. You gave us the gift of appetite and gave us appetizing things to satisfy us while enriching our physical bodies.

I was fixing breakfast now and began to prepare a banana as a part of the breakfast menu. Since I was in a meditative mood already over the pigeon and the pecan, I thought, “What about this banana?” It is the perfect fruit (unless you want to cook it and make it a vegetable). It is neatly packed in a biodegradable carton, easily separated from its cover and even looks attractive and inviting. Its taste is beyond description and its nutritional value beyond assessment (I have a multipage report on its powerful nutritional values, its energy-giving potential, and its multivitamin treasures posted on my refrigerator).

I think I will never again eat a banana without repeating the thoughts of this meditation. God, You are so good to prepare such a delectable, easily prepared and health-filled snack for those you love, both monkeys and mankind.

Yesterday, I saw the love of God in a new way through the prism of the pigeon, the pecan and the banana. I found myself beginning to sing the old song on the love of God that I learned, played and sang as a boy. As I came to the last verse I remembered that in that now-ancient book where I first found the song, a note read that this verse was found written on the wall of a room in an insane asylum:

Could we with ink the oceans fill
And were the skies of parchment made
Were every stalk on earth a quill
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above
Would drain the oceans dry
Nor could the scroll contain the whole
Though stretched from sky to sky.

Now that is big love and I have a feeling that it is bigger than we can imagine. So you are now free to start anywhere, with a pigeon, a pecan or a banana or anything else and be reminded of a love unbounded . . . for you!

JRT