All of a sudden, I had six dozen early-harvest apples, all of which I had to gently pluck from our fallen tree before righting it. Most of them had sooty blight, which cleans off perfectly with a washing. I don't use chemicals or pesticides on my tree, so about a third of them weren't even close to edible, overcome by cankers, worms, or rot. Those, I tossed into my sunflower patch, where they'll degrade and add to the soil.
Another third were functionally perfect, albeit a little greener than one would want for a Fuji. Those could easily have come from a farmer's market or produce stand, and they went straight into our fruit bowl. They've been delicious.
That final third was neither one nor t'other. They weren't the sort of apple you'd just pick up and eat. There'd be a deep bruise or a spot of rot on one, or a canker on another. That portion of the fruit was unusable for human consumption. The rest of the apple, though, was flawless.
Were one sorting apples for sale, those imperfect apples would be worthless. No-one would choose them for purchase. You wouldn't set them out for guests, or just snack on them.
But just because industrial agriculture has acclimatized us to hyperabundance doesn't pardon our failure to see value in imperfect things.
I've just got the one little tree out front, and I get what apples I get. I've tended it and watered it and pruned it, so not doing something with the blemished and slightly damaged fruit seemed a waste. "What," I thought to myself, "would I do with these apples if they were the only food I had?" I'd eat whatever could be eaten, of course.
So over the last week, I've used them to make two apple crisps, both of which have been utterly delicious. The preparation did take a little more care, I'll admit. I diligently sliced away anything foul or rotten. In some cases, that meant half of an apple. In others, I'd discover that what looked like a small surface blemish was, in fact, just the tip of an iceberg of decay. That whole apple would be repurposed as compost.
For most of them, though, just a little cutting and paring yielded sweetness that was no less delicious than cosmetically perfect fruit.
It reminded me, as things often do, of a little passage from Paul, where he talks about how we and our works will be tested. Not every part of us is what it needs to be, after all. We are none of us perfect.
But that doesn't mean we are utterly without value or purpose.
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