Abundance and starvation.

This month there have been two contrasting images.

The heartbreaking photo of Hedaya al-Muta’wi and her emaciated son Mohammed in Gaza.

There’s not enough food, people are starving.

“Our plum tree has lots of ripe fruit on it. Please help yourself as there is more than we can use.” A wonderful WhatsApp invitation to share the sweet taste of summer.

A neighbours’ mature Mirabelle plum tree has never fruited like it has this year. Daily, the harvest has filled many containers and still a rich supply decorates the branches. The conditions this year have been perfect for a bumper crop. Amazing abundance.

Small red Mirabelle plums in abundance on tree

Without the invitation to share, all that delicious, juicy energy would have been absorbed back into the soil. Bruised decaying fruit would have drawn in wasps and kept neighbours at bay.

The invitation to share has brought neighbours together and strengthened connections. Some were made into jam and gifted back. Cakes, puddings and crumbles have graced many tables. Unexpected joy and celebration. The sweetness of a shared experience. Generous gift.

The current dominant narrative is of scarcity. We believe there’s not enough resources on the planet – not enough food, not enough jobs, not enough housing, not enough land, not enough time. It’s the lens we wear, so it’s what we see and we’re in danger of believing it cannot be changed. And worse that conflict and war are inevitable in a race to secure enough to survive.

Yet the tree offers another lens, one of amazing abundance and mutual enjoyment. I’m so thankful for Pete and Sonia’s generous invitation to share. The plums were delicious and so was the communal joy. It blessed us and our neighbours.

And encouraged me to ask – “What I can share?” “What do I have that I can invite others to enjoy?” Dinner, cake, conversation, questions, family life and all it’s mess.  

I know the strong temptation to retract from the devastation in our world - be it international, local or personal. The strong desire to only seek joy and pleasure.

Yet to live is to know both. We all have unmet needs that speak of scarcity and we all have precious abundance to offer another. Strength is all sharing both.

I found a heart wrenching poem that speaks of our capacity to hold both sorrow and joy tenderly. Oh, how I need that word that means okay and not okay. The antithesis of “fine”.

So, stand with me this summer when you ask how I am, and I howl with grief and burble with delight. May our hearts be willing to stretch and grow to tenderly bear both together.

I want a word that means

okay and not okay

more than that: a word that means

devastated and stunned with joy

I want the word that says -

I feel it all at once.

The heart is not like a songbird

singing only one note at a time,

more like a Tuvan throat singer

able to sing both a drone

and simultaneously

two or three harmonics high above it -

a sound the Tuvans say

that gives the impression

of wind swirling among rocks.

The heart understands swirl,

how the churning of opposite feelings

weaves through us like an insistent breeze

leads us wordlessly deeper into ourselves,

blesses us with paradox

so we might walk more openly

into this world so ripe with devastation

this world so ripe with joy.

Rosemary Wahtoler Trommer