Today is my day off, and I've stayed in bed a little later than I should have, and I've had a glorious breakfast of fresh raspberries and nectarines with sugar and real cream. Such decadence! And while this simple meal was quite good, and the raspberries looked most excellent--big berries, beautiful color--I had this thought...these berries looked good, but they didn't have very much flavor. They weren't what they seemed. Aren't people like this sometimes? They seem really attractive in appearance, but there is nothing to them, at least, not what we think they should be.
I have experienced this many times with fruit. I make jam every summer, and one of my favorites is Pear Ginger jam. Almost every year, I get pears from a friend at church. He has a tree in his yard. These pears are not much to look at. They are small, they are blemished, discolored, gnarled...Hold that thought...
A few years back, another friend went to a fruit orchard in Bend, OR, and brought me back some peaches and pears. The pears were picture perfect--large, unblemished, yellow with a red spot...the nicest pears you could ask for. So I made jam with them, thinking it would be really great jam.
Well...you can probably guess the outcome...It was the ugly imperfect pears that made the best jam, not the ones that looked perfect.
So I guess that raises a thought that I want to leave you with. We shouldn't judge people by what we see. Often the ones that look the best physically, spiritually, emotionally, etc. don't have much to them. They literally have no "taste". The people who have "taste" or character, are the ones we might shy away from because they are blemished or imperfect. These are the kinds of people that enrich our lives and make the best "jam".