Saints Preserve Us

...an eggplant, a tulip, and Dante

Saints Preserve Us!

I have never, to my knowledge, actually used this phrase. I don’t remember any of my grandmothers using it. It has its roots in the Irish and Scottish tradition (can claim some of that!) and could be related to praying to the saints gone before or appealing to the local community of believers or just a cry for help from heaven.

I may have uttered a cry for help recently at the sight of yet more tomatoes being unloaded onto my kitchen counter. The harvest is plenty over here and the workers, Steve and I, are furiously trying to keep up. Except for the yellow squash – few and far between – the garden has done well this year. My dill, basil, and thyme have shown up in pickles, pesto, and pasta. The zucchini bread was a hit with my knitting group. The cucumbers and tomatoes have appeared almost nightly in salads. And all the peppers! Jalapenos, cubanos, serranos, and bell. Little jars of calico pepper jelly are so pretty that I can’t bear to put them in the pantry just yet. I love to look at them. But all things are coming to an end. Where we live, the heat of summer is bringing things to a close and we are ok with that! The fall planning is happily accomplished indoors with AC.

While the daily weeding winds down, my task list ramps up. How to save and steward this bounty? I have, in the past week:

-canned pints of pepper jelly

-dehydrated jalapenos, to be mixed in a seasoned salt; and cucumbers for tzatziki mix

-frozen containers of tomato puree, salsa, and marinara sauce

-refrigerated pickles: dill and sweet

-smoked eggplants for baba ghanoush and roasted them for moussaka

I think I’ve got just about all the preserving methods covered. (Fermenting, salting, and smoking are going to have to wait.)

I like the word “preservation.” It shows up in the acronym “T-U-L-I-P” as either “perseverance of the saints” or “preservation of the saints.” For God to save his people, at great cost, he does not plan on letting anything or anyone snatch them out of his hand. But there’s more! He loves us poor sinners too much to let us remain in our present state. Enter the journey of sanctification. If that word makes you uncomfortable you can say “spiritual maturity” or “becoming holy” or “growing in Godliness or Christlikeness.” It’s like my tomatoes: left on the counter they will spoil, rot, ooze, and decay. That’s not in my game plan folks! I will do whatever it takes to preserve them, care for them, and make them useful, even if that requires slicing off the defects, subjecting them to boiling temperatures or environments that wither and shrivel and otherwise change their appearance. Ouch. Sanctification hurts sometimes.

But there is good news. As part of the After-Hours Book Club, some friends and I meet over Zoom once a week to discuss good books. We have just finished Purgatorio, part 2 of Dante’s Divine Comedy. While you may be familiar with the levels of Hell and punishment depicted in The Inferno, unfortunately most people stop there. That’s a shame! Purgatoriotells the story of saints who are saved, who are not being punished but are rather being made holy. They are learning to do hard things, build new habits, and grow in virtue. It IS hard, but here’s the better news: They don’t do this alone. In community with others, they work. In groups of fellow saints, they sing. In fellowship, they are buoyed by the prayers of the body of Christ. Preservation and perseverance were never meant to be a solitary endeavor.

And so, we persevere. My tomatoes don’t know their destiny but I know how the story will end. And the one who keeps and preserves me does as well.

Until next time-

Welcome Home!

Renée