Devotional on Icewine:
It is a solemn thing for a soul to grow ripe. Emily Dickenson
Beauty is found in its perishableness. Denise Levertov
Regarding Eiswine/Icewine— The grapes come from two stalwart countries Canada and Germany—-
Questions to consider about your own harvest:
Can you believe in a ripening when other vines have a successful harvest and you are left in the elements—Can you go through longsuffering?
Can you gamble? If your timing is off and all is lost what do you stand on? If the freeze comes too late.. the grapes decay and die.
Can you live towards a complexity of flavors even if it means having less volume of your output? How will you cope if life is lived in what seems like being forgotten? How do you grow when all that you are cuts against the consumer model of large production? Mass volume? Can you risk obscurity?
Can you watch diligently and with a daily rhythm for the one prime hour when you are changed? When summer is frozen inside you, distilled truth is yours to name… and your gift is ready to be released from the vine? When the call comes can you press grapes until midnight for the glory set before you?
Can you believe in a good God if many cherished grapes on the vine beside you are swarmed by birds and taken off the vine? Can you trust through violence? Can violence be integrated in your story? Will you grapple with God about when loss is an unexpected and rude intruder? How do you handle the denuding of your protection?
Can you let the seasons be the seasons? If the freeze this year is too intense and the wind chill is severe.. there will be no juice. How do you handle sovereignty? The years when there is nothing to celebrate? How do you grieve? Who modeled how to grieve?
When you have ordered your heart, time and resources, can you tolerate the loss in spite of your labor? Can you find value in a yield that is one fifth of what the rest of the vineyards yield? Can you walk a narrow road littered with unknowns while the multitudes are walking wide roads with wealth and predictability?
Beauty is seen when a person, belief or object is resting in its right proportion. For example a beautiful diamond is very small in size. You know its value in proportion to the suffering inherent in attaining it. It is small and hidden in hard coal and extreme darkness inside a diamond mine. Can you celebrate the power of redemption and the joy that in Christ nothing is lost. Can you see that all of the suffering that went into creating a full but very small taste is worth it? The strenuous process of discipleship is accomplished by Christ, the vinedresser. In time your heart is distilled and radiant. The glory it reflects is intense and it is a foretaste of a heavenly table when the Groom will host the marriage supper of the lamb. At that festival where loss and victories are overshadowed by the beauty of summation there will be a final union with Christ. Our Savior shows the import of our battles by holding the best wine back until we are seated and able to partake of His rich gifts. He plans a lovely time of great communion at the end of a hard fought battle and the wine’s quality matches the proportion what it means for us to accept his invitation to stay His disciple to the end. The reserved wine is the best representation of a life poured out first for sacrifice and now ceremonially. You are applauded for having robbed death and blight in your tested life. I believe the finest of wine is sought and brought to the table just for you.
Can you accept that you are worthy of being contained in slender and lovely hand-blown glass? Can you taste and see the crescendo of the late harvest? The wine is rare, from a limited time, atmosphere, through tending by the vinedresser. In so many aspects the wine’s survival (like your own) is doubtful and its hope perseveres through limiting circumstances. Ice wine is preserved through so many severe and numerous tests of nature that each ounce worth 300 % more than table wine that is a staple of our lives!
How is your belly laugh these days?
