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Cheers for the tomato! Festival of Sukkot begins tonight
The other day, my gardener friend Fran gave me the last tomato of the season from her garden. Tonight, when the fes
tival of Sukkot begins, I’m going to celebrate that tomato, a symbol of abundance.
Sukkot is an annual festival that began in ancient Israel as a thanksgiving to God for the Fall harvest. It also commemorates the forty years that the Jewish people lived in the wilderness after their exodus from slavery in Egypt. Sukkot means “huts” or “booths” in Hebrew. The word brings to my mind an image of humble dwellings of a people in transition, a people whose true home was in God.
In solidarity with the Jewish community, I’ll give thanks for a bountiful harvest. Not only for the tomatoes, onions, carrots, lettuce and many other great things that came from Fran’s garden. But also for the joys of friendship and the recognition that God is with me in all seasons.
So tonight, cheers for the tomato! What comes to mind for you as a symbol of thanksgiving for the Fall harvest in your life?
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Great reflection of our harvest festival of foods of delight! The tomato is so real I wanted to take a big bite! Since I am in the ‘harvest of my own life’ all becomes more bright, more alive, more real, more inviting with oodles of contentment and thanks.
What a wonderful comment, Joyce! Thank you!
Hi there! Thanks for the reminder, I am now sending a Sukkot greeting card to a very dear friend of mine. And I will share a “gratitude” with her. I’ll bet she’ll send one back. A very good practice it is to find a partner to share what one is grateful for. One of my sister-friends and I do that. Blessings, Pat
That’s a great practice, Pat! I find that when I share with others about what I’m grateful for, I become more aware of the good things in my life and am happier as a result.
I am grateful for fall foliage. Seriously. God has built in such beauty in his creation – and it is unnecessary – we could live in a greyscale universe, but we live in one that is overflowing with such lavish beauty. We are built to desire and appreciate beauty – in nature: in accidental patterns on beaches and silhouettes of trees against darkening skies, rainbows, rocks and waterfalls, in dogs and horses and duck-billed platypuses — in human artifacts like sculpture, painting, furniture, carpets and automobiles and fountain pens. Beauty and love of beauty must be one of the attributes of God or else it would not be one of the attributes of all human beings.
What Marsha SAID!! Fall is awesome. Yesterday afternoon I stole a few minutes on the back deck, soaking in the fall foliage and the beauty brought tears to my eyes. And Marsha is absolutely right–unnecessary, but put there for us. And it always makes me sad to see people take it for granted.