Reflections…………………………………………………….SaltShaker

My friend, Jon Paul Kirkham, likes to grow tomatoes.  This past week, he and his wife, Linda, came to visit from Nashville with a large bag of tomatoes from the massive garden he had grown this past season.  Growing tomatoes is a passion and a love for Jon Paul (JP).

The process begins in the Fall of the year as JP covers a large area with leaves that will be spread over the previous year’s plot and distributed equally, forming a bed-like appearance.  In the Spring, JP will gradually ‘work’ these leaves into the ground, creating a rich mulch where he will place the young tomato seedlings.  These seedlings will be cared for as if placed in a nursery at the local hospital. The appropriate wire cages are placed around each tomato plant, and they will grow, grow, and grow.  In a short time, the tomato plants will produce abundant tomatoes.   With the care of a master gardener, JP will nurture these plants and tomatoes until they are fully ripe.  Vines and plants hang with large red tomatoes.

At the appropriate time, JP removes the tomatoes with the precision of a surgeon and places them in paper bags that hold three to four tomatoes.  The fun begins.

Neighbors are the first to enjoy the fruits of his labor as JP delivers bags of tomatoes to his neighbors.  Secondly, Sunday morning at church inside the hallway of the Sunday school department, bags of tomatoes line the hallway.  The department consists largely of fellow Seniors, and, at the time of dismissal, they are greeted in the hallway with an abundance of large red, ripe tomatoes.  Free for the taking.

Jesus says we are the salt of the earth (Matt:5-13).  Like JP, God wants me and my words and deeds to be an example of love, kindness, goodwill, compassion and grace. If I am doing those things, then I’m doing my job as a saltshaker.  JP is a classic example of a saltshaker.