Olive Shoots Around the Table

Psalm 119:145-176 • Psalm 128, 129, 130
Zech. 12:1-10 • Eph. 1:3-14 • Luke 19:1-10

Blessed is every one
who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways!

You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands;
you shall be happy, and it shall be well with you.

Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house
your children will be like olive shoots around your table.

These are just the beginning lines of the selections for today but to me they are funny because of my father-in-law, Winfield, who on special occasions would solemnly say a prayer at the head of the table to his five unruly children and I would be there because I was dating the eldest son, John.

The children were Biblically named: John, James, Judith, Mary, and David, and the mother was Norma. But when the reading of the solemn prayer was over the father would pause and say: “Metropolitan Life Insurance Co.” which was at the bottom of the page. Then everybody would laugh, except maybe Norma. The first few times of this seriousness and funniness were a surprise to me. Psalm, 128, Your children will be like olive shoots around your table, led my father-in-law sometimes to feel he had cause to say that his olive shoots were not cause to be grateful.

One son, Jim, wanted to be a writer, my husband wanted to be a librarian, and when the youngest, David, at three, began to memorize the names of the presidents from his little encyclopedia while sitting in his high chair, my father and mother-in-law decided the family needed to move near Michigan State.

But Jim one autumn, perhaps to try his wings as a poet, hitch hiked to California where the family, upset with worry, heard from him that his money had been stolen and that he needed bus fare home. This time Winfield said something so poetic himself I have never forgotten it. “I don’t care if the piss-ants carry him out the keyhole I’m not sending money.” But of course he did send money and Jim returned home.

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;

my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.

Written by Rebecca Newth

...in memory of Jim and Winfield Harrison, John, Norma, and Judy.