Latest / Sasquatch & Sourdough / S2 Ep. 2 | HARVEST | Strange Harvest Folklore & Scarecrow Encounters

Transcript

S2 Ep. 2 | HARVEST | Strange Harvest Folklore & Scarecrow Encounters · Sasquatch & Sourdough

0:08
SPEAKER_00: Well, welcome back to Sasquatch and Sourdough.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: I am your host Christina and guys I am so excited.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: It is finally fall around here.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: I have gotten some fantasy pumpkins.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm starting my imaginary competition with my neighbor to see who can put more fall festive stuff on their porch.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: Um it's been really good so far, so I hope yours is too.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: I have just been really loving noticing the changes of the season this year.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what it is.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: I was walking around the track today and I noticed a bunch of like this track is basically completely man-made.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: There's grass like around the outside of it, but in terms of the actual tread that we walk on and the grass in the middle, it's totally like fake turf.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: But I noticed that from the trees around it, like surrounding the area, there were acorns that like landed on this track.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: And I thought to myself, like, man, if that isn't us sometimes, like just laying there, totally not going to go anywhere.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: Like, this acorn is not gonna get planted into the ground, it's not gonna find its way to soil, it's probably gonna be squirrel food.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: So that was kind of a cool thing I noticed today that's really in touch with where this episode is going to go.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: But first, I wanted to welcome you in.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: If you are new here, welcome.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for tuning in.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: I hope that you enjoy this content and I hope that you find it weirdly encouraging.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: Um, you can check out the website if you want to get connected, sasquatchandsourdough.com.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: The best way to stay in touch, though, is Instagram.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: You can find us there, send me a DM or send an email to Sasquatch and Sourdough at gmail.com.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: All of that out of the way, um, let's dive into this.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: So something else like that I was kind of putting together when I was thinking about harvest is this one specific part of the Bible, that part in Matthew 13 was the parable of the sower.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'm gonna read that to you guys.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: And it says, and he told them many things in parables saying, A sower went out to sow, and as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: Other seeds fell on rocky ground where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: Some they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose, they were scorched, and since they had no root, they withered away.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: He who has ears, let him hear.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: And so that was kind of like, I don't know, that just reminded me of what I was talking about earlier, um, at the track.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: Like that little acorn, you know, that's exactly what Jesus was talking about.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: What kind of soil are we finding ourselves cultivating?
3:06
SPEAKER_00: Like, what is the condition of our heart?
3:09
SPEAKER_00: I think that's a really good question for harvest time.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to jump into some really cool um harvest traditions.
3:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, this was really fascinating.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: So picture an old field being harvested by hand.
3:27
SPEAKER_00: At the beginning of the day, there's grain everywhere.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: Then the workers start cutting.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: And as the field gets smaller, anything hiding inside it gets pushed farther and farther into what's left: a rabbit, a fox, a hare.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: Acres become half a field.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: Half a field becomes a strip.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: And eventually there's just one little patch standing.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: Irish folklore collected in County Litrim remembers that final patch being associated with the hare.
3:57
SPEAKER_00: Kind of the tradition of the last sheaf.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: It's an Irish tradition where basically they save the last bunch of whatever was being harvested in the field, the last sheaf, the last piece that was kind of like left for the hare, um, which some say it was actually a hare, some say it was something like an old woman.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: It's a really interesting folklore.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: And this is from the main manuscript collection, volume 0762.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: This is the national folklore collection from Ireland.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: And this account says long ago, when the women used to cut the corn, they used to bring in the last four sheaves at night, put them in the chimney to smoke.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: When that was done, they had two stones to grind it.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: When that was done, they put it into a pot and put it on the fire to dry.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: When that was done, they had two more round stones to grind it again.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: And last of all, they took it and boiled it for their supper.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: The old people say, when the last sheaf is being cut, you will hear them say, look out for the hare.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: The last grain of corn is left in the corner of the field.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: The old people used to get their neighbors to cut the last of the corn because the hare used to make off afraid of the stranger.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: The old people said that the last four sheaves used to be given to the parish priest.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: The old people also say that the last two sheaves should be left under a white thorn bush so that the hare would not be brought into the house.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: Some old people say that there used to be a lark in the sheaf.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: A cup of seed oats is taken out of the last sheaf and thrown the next year in the corner of the field.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: The old people say that the cup of oats was for the hare.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: The people never saw the hare when cutting the corn, but they used to hear a noise when cutting the last sheaf.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: Oh, and that was obtained by Mrs.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: McMahro.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: So this is what's really strange.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, because the last thing in the final grain wasn't always a hare.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it was actually called the old woman.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: So now this is I'm gonna botch this pronunciation, but basically the old woman in the corn, it's more Irish folklore.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: Um it's an Irish harvest custom, and it's called the Calage, can mean an old woman or hag, and versions of the name became attached with the final sheaf in Irish harvest customs.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh, one account from Ross Common collected around 1940 says farmers hurried to finish cutting their grain by the end of August because nobody wanted to finish last.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: The last person harvesting became associated with the old Kayleach.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: Um, okay, so this is really cool.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna read this to you.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: Um here's another account from that same website.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: Oh, and this is great because it's actually people's handwritten accounts where they write on like lined notebook paper with pencil and cursive.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: Ugh.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: Like to be analog again.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm so sick and tired of digital content, guys, but I digress.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is really cool.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: It says, this is by Jack McBride, and it's from a newspaper clipping, Irish News and Belfast Morning News, September 17th, 1940.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: Culling cutting the Caileach by Jack McBride.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: It is a harvest day in Gleneriff.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: Many years ago, the reapers with their sickles, hooks they call them, are busy cutting the golden corn, while after them come the gatherers lifting and tying the corn in sheaves.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: Evening approaches, and only a sheaf or two remains to be cut, when suddenly from out the last standing corn darts a little old woman, only about 18 inches high and dressed in a yellow cloak and bonnet.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: The reapers draw back in consternation, and before they can recover from their astonishment, she reaches the safety of the adjoining hedge.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: The story of the above encounter with the Kayleech or Old Woman of the Corn was related to me by an old octogenarian clansman, Glensman.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, guys.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: According to him, such appearances were by no means exceptional in the old days.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: Although the coming of the knife and later the reaping machine seems to have made the kayach more cautionary of allowing herself to be caught unawares.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: The old woman of the corn.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: All over Ulster, belief in the existence of the old woman of the corn persisted till a few years ago, and even today there are places where cutting the kayach is still practiced.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: Anyone who has seen a field of corn being cut has noticed the invariable number of wild animals, such as rabbits or hares, and usually a corn crack or two, keep retreating before the reapers until at last only a small patch remains, when with the courage of desperation, they make a break for the hedge.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: In the old days, such animals were believed to be the spirit of the Calich making her escape and nobody ever hindered their going.
9:13
SPEAKER_00: It was believed, too, that if the last patch of corn were left standing and the reaper stood off it a respectable distance and tried to cut it by throwing the reaping hooks at it, this induced the kayach to betake herself to the next door neighbor's corn.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, I love this.
9:31
SPEAKER_00: Um so it kind of goes on from there, but it's just uh what a fun, what a fun legend.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: And so then it's then it goes down to tossing the kayach.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: At Cushdell show a few years ago, an old custom was revived, that of tossing the kaych.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: This consisted of a number of sheaths or of rushes, each representing the size and height of a good sheaf of corn, and competitors were each supplied with a pitchfork and had to toss the sheaf over a high rail set between posts.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: Dexterity as well as strength was needed, and it was surprisingly how high some of the tossers sent their sheaves.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's so fun.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: I love a good harvest festival.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: I hope you guys are staying off the internet and getting out to a harvest festival this season.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: I know that's what I'm doing.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that um I like never ever heard of that.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: Like, obviously, we have scarecrows here, but I don't know.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: Scarecrows are just so strange to me.
10:32
SPEAKER_00: Um it's just really weird.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: Like, so in that tradition, they have it goes on to talk about like bringing the old woman home.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm not really gonna get into that, but it's essentially like bringing like a scarecrow home.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: Um, I just find our custom of scarecrows in the house decoratively is just a little bit odd.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they're objectively strange, right?
10:51
SPEAKER_00: We've just been looking at them for so long that I think we stopped noticing.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: Um, so we take old clothes, stuff them in the approximate shape of a person, and then if you don't have a cornfield to like shove one in to scare crows, like I get that, but I don't know.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: The decoration thing is weird to me.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: It looks alive, like it's weird.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: Like some of them look really creepy.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: Um, but it isn't.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: So it's like that uncanny valley thing.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: I've just been really paying attention to that.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's really, really weird.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: We have like what the scarecrow walks at midnight from goosebumps, like stuff like that.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, and of course, like Harold.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you guys, of course, if you grew up in the 90s, you probably remember scary stories to tell in the dark.
11:37
SPEAKER_00: Harold was probably one of the most terrifying scary story ever.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and it's about a scarecrow that was put in a field.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: Um, these like roofers or workers basically keep like making fun of it and like taunting it, and then it like comes to live and essentially murders them, uh, which is a nightmare in itself.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: So let's of course write that for small children uh in middle school.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: Like that's where my lore started.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, but anyway, I don't really know of any like accounts of scarecrows.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't believe that I actually was able to find a scarecrow account.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: Like, this is crazy, guys.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: Um, and it actually comes from the BFRO It's Wild.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: Uh in 2012, a man submitted an account to the Bigfoot Researchers or Field Or uh Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization describing something he says happened when he was in ninth grade.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go right to the account.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: It's insane.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so this is in 1980.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: This guy was in middle school, Brunswick County, Virginia.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: So, any of my Virginia people, give me a shout out somewhere in the comment section.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: I'd love to hear from you after this one because this one's crazy.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so this is what he observed.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: I was in junior high uh for crew junior high, which no longer exists.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: I was riding on a school bus on the back roads of Greenville County, Virginia, after competing in a junior high school basketball game with my teammates.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: We had lost the game, so my coach had told everyone on the bus ride that he wanted no talking on the ride home uh back to Nottaway County.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: Well, almost everybody on the bus was asleep or trying to go to sleep because we could not talk.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: That is when I saw it.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: About 75 to 100 yards away from the road, down a hill, was a cornfield with a scarecrow on a wooden cross in the middle of it.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: I saw out of the foggy window.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: Um, I saw out of the foggy window because it was early winter, a huge figure standing like a man with hair all over it.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: I could tell it had hair because it was thick and long from under its arms.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: It had to be about eight to nine feet tall, uh, and it was massive.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: Its head was at the chest area of the scarecrow on the wooden cross.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: It was huge and massive, it appeared to be looking at the scarecrow.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: As the bus drove by, I sat up in the seat to try to get a better look out the window because I had the window cracked to get some air.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: I yelled at my coach and everyone on the bus.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: Did you see that?
14:18
SPEAKER_00: They all laughed and joked on me.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: I tried to get my coach to turn back around.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: He was so mad at the team for losing the game.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: He told everyone to be quiet and not say another word, or we would be running laps the next day.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: So I did not say anything else.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: What I saw that night has haunted me for a long time until today, when I got a text message from my brother about an article he read from you guys about Bigfoot sightings in Nottaway and Brunswick counties.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: My brother knows of the story I have told and wanted me to know that I was not the only one to have seen something like this in my hometown area.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: I live in Midlothlin, Midlothland, Virginia.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: Now, but it's only 45 minutes from Nottaway, Virginia, where the story of the Fort Picker Pickett sighting my brother read happened at an about an hour and a half from Greensville, Virginia.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: He says there's no other witnesses, only he saw it on the bus.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: The poor kid.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: Okay, there's a follow-up investigation.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: So this investigator says, after conversing with the witness, uh, the following information can be added.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: He says it was winter 1980, he was in ninth grade.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: The creature stood in a small clearing in the cornfield, staring up at the scarecrow that had been mounted to a wooden cross.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: The scarecrow would have been probably 10 feet high, as was typical in that area, and it stood only a foot or more taller than the figure.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: Looking down from the bus, the witness could see the creature's entire body.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: The arms hung away from its torso somewhat, but that he could see long hair hanging from them.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: It had long legs and wide hips, but given its tremendous height, the overall appearance was slender and not bulky.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: He could not clearly make out the face at that distance, but could see that its head was large and its chest was broad.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: The face and head had a lot of long hair around it, which looked wild and unkempt, not groomed as a bear's head or bear's hair will often appear.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: The hair on this creature did not lay all in one direction, but appeared to stick out in various directions.
16:35
SPEAKER_00: The witness compared the size to a seven foot seven-inch tall man he once saw, and he felt this creature would have dwarfed that man.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: Having worked on farms, the witness was very familiar with the typical height of a local of local corn and tobacco crops and how high scarecrows were often mounted.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: The BFRO reports of activity in nearby areas prompted the witness to submit his report.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: He was spooked by the sighting, and after many years of wondering about what he saw, these same reports have given him solace that he's not alone in his experience from that part of rural Virginia.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: So if you guys are from rural Virginia and you've ever seen a scared a Bigfoot looking at a scarecrow.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: That is an amazing crossover.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: I would love to hear that story.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: This poor guy.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: But at least we found comfort.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: So this is what I love about all this stuff.
17:28
SPEAKER_00: Like, you're not alone out there.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so there's also kind of a creepier West Virginia frontier legend involving a face or a figure that is called Croc face.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: So this story is kind of like scarecrow adjacent.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of interesting.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: Um I'm gonna go to the actual report.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: Um okay, so this is actually from West Virginia.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: West Virginia Explorer.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, my talking's not happening today, apparently.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is Clarksburg, West Virginia.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: Among the stories handed down from West Virginia's frontier, few are stranger than the tale of Crockface, an indigenous warrior who was said to have hidden in plain sight by disguising himself as a scarecrow while waiting to ambush an early settler.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, okay, so this is kind of one of those where it's like a little bit legend, like not many accounts, but the legends trickle down so much that it's kind of part of the folklore.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, so this is kind of really it's just kind of strange.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh the legend is set during the period when European-American settlers were moving into what is now North Central West Virginia, then a remote and contested part of Virginia's western frontier.
18:52
SPEAKER_00: According to versions of the story presented in West Virginia folklore, Crockface was an indigenous warrior who sought revenge against an early settler named Benjamin Coplin.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: Rather than approaching Coplin openly, he supposedly devised an unusual way to conceal himself near the settler's property.
19:11
SPEAKER_00: He disguised himself as a scarecrow.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: Standing motionless in or near a field, Crockface could supposedly watch the farm without immediately attracting attention.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: To anyone looking from the house or passing at a distance, the figure might have appeared to be nothing more than an ordinary uh scarecrow put up to frighten birds away from crops.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: The deception apparently worked on people at the farm, but not the family dog.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: According to legend, the animal became suspicious of the supposed scarecrow and repeatedly approached or investigated it.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: Crocface eventually struck or kicked the dog in an effort to drive it away, revealing that the motionless figure in the field was alive.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: Once the disguise had been discovered, the attempted ambush failed.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: In the confrontation that followed, Crocface was killed.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so this is a crazy story.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: This article goes on to say, like it, you know, contesting whether it actually existed or not.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: But either way, again, if we see scarecrows in fields, I'm gonna trust my dog.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I'm also probably gonna assume that it might come alive.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: A scarecrow is something dead pretending to be alive.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: Crockface is something alive pretending not to be.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: The wheat and tares grow beside each other, the last sheaf looks like grain until something comes running out of it.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: All of these stories keep circling the same strange question.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: What are we actually looking at?
20:41
SPEAKER_00: Scripture answers that question in an interesting way.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: We're looking for the fruit.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: What does it produce?
20:49
SPEAKER_00: Paul writes in Galatians: a man reaps what he sows.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: And that's uncomfortable because eventually what we're feeding produces something.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: Fear produces something, bitterness produces something, pride, love, faithfulness, patience produces something.
21:08
SPEAKER_00: The things we're cultivating when nobody else can see them eventually start appearing above the soil.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: And we can spend an enormous amount of energy trying to manage how everything looks from the road.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: That's what's kind of fun and strange about scarecrows.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: From far enough away, it passes.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: It has a silhouette, it has clothes, it has the right shape, I can stop and take a picture of it.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: But there isn't any life inside.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: Christianity was never supposed to be about learning how to look alive.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: Jesus doesn't tell us to become better scarecrows.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: He says something entirely different.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: I am the vine, you are the branches, remain in me.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: Jesus also talks about pruning, and even fruitful branches get cut back.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Which means an empty-looking season is necessarily isn't necessarily evidence that nothing good happened there.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes things are being removed preciously because there is life there.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: I've been experiencing a total season of pruning.
22:16
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like there's fruit coming from it.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: There is a time where I wasn't really able to be as creative as I wanted to be with writing.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: I actually felt kind of stale.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: I felt like God was stripping away like everything that I liked doing.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: Especially when it came to like writing about creepy and weird things.
22:35
SPEAKER_00: But now I'm getting more opportunities to do that.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like those things that God was like, no, that's not for you.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't like you're missing out on anything.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: It was more like take away this bad thing so that good stuff can come through.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: And I want to make one distinction before we leave the field.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: Because maybe you're listening to all this talk about fruit and harvest and thinking, I don't see anything.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: You've planted, you've watered, you've pruned, you've prayed.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: You've tried to remain faithful, and your field still looks pretty empty.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: But Psalm 126 says, Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: Some seed goes into the ground wet with tears, and some seasons don't produce something we can immediately see.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: Galatians says not to grow weary in doing good, because in due season we will reap.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: Due season.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: Not necessarily right now or in a year or in a month or a week, but in due season.
23:41
SPEAKER_00: So good fruit takes time.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: That's why abiding matters.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: Soon these fields are going to go back to looking completely different.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: The corn will come down, gardens will be cleared, trees will empty, all the wild summer growth will disappear, and we'll finally see what remains.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's why people told so many strange stories about the final piece of a harvest.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: The hare hiding in the grain, the little old woman running for the hedge, the scarecrow standing alone in an empty field.
24:18
SPEAKER_00: There's stories about what is left when everything else has been stripped away.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: When the season changes, what remains?
24:27
SPEAKER_00: What have I actually been growing?
24:30
SPEAKER_00: What needs pruning?
24:31
SPEAKER_00: What looks alive but isn't producing anything?
24:35
SPEAKER_00: What is actually dead?
24:38
SPEAKER_00: Jesus doesn't give us another ritual to control the field.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: I am the vine.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: You are the branches.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: Stay close.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: Let him prune what needs pruning.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: Keep planting what is good.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: And if this has been a season where you've sown more tears than anything else, don't assume the field is empty.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: Something may be growing that you cannot see yet.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: Harvest doesn't create what was in the field.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: Harvest reveals what was growing there all along.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: Well, guys, that's gonna wrap up our harvest episode.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for joining me.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: And remember, until next time, the truth is out there.
25:19
SPEAKER_00: God is with you, and everyone always ends up in the kitchen.