Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

When you beat the olives from your trees, do not go over the branches a second time. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow.

• Deuteronomy 24:20

My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.

• James 3:12

My son found out a couple of years ago that he was allergic to olives.  Odd, he had eaten olives growing up, but now he is allergic.

He went to a popular sandwich shop where you tell them what things to put on the sandwich.  Of course, he did not order olives.  In fact, he told them that he was allergic to olives, and that their pickle container had more olives in it than pickles.  They had another pickle container and he insisted on those pickles.  He and his wife ate their sandwiches and she noticed that he was slurring his speech.  Instead of his face swelling a lot, swelling enough to notice, his tongue and throat swelled.

This was a bad combination in that he could quit breathing and not have enough time to call 911.  He would be unable to talk even then.  He called me and it sounded like he was drunk, slurring the words and unable to enunciate half the consonants.

But through it all, he could breathe.  He did not trust himself driving, so his wife drove him home before driving back to her job.  My son had been home due to illness anyway, just nothing contagious.

But before they left, they confronted the sandwich crew.  The crew denied he had said anything about having an allergy.  He showed them the two containers of pickles and how he had insisted on having the one without olives due to an allergy.  Then, as he looked, there were olives in every container.  There was lettuce with olives, spinach with olives, jalapeno peppers with olives.  There were no olives in the tomatoes, but he did not order any of them.

He got sick.  He could have died because the sandwich crew was sloppy.

Even when I told him to go to the doctor, he refused.  The swelling was not that bad.  I called him an hour later, just to hear his voice.  I did not want to lose two people in my immediate family in the same year.  I had lost my brother, father, and mother in three months about twelve years ago.  Not again!  Please, Lord.

An hour later, he called me back and he only had a slight lisp with one consonant sound.

We can see the crumbling of the general work ethic every day, but on this occasion, the workers nearly caused a death, and they blamed him as he left the shop because they were not listening when he told them he had an allergy.

I fear for my son in that the next time, the swelling might be worse, and he does the wrong thing by going home and taking a nap.

God will bring an end to this madness, and it may be soon.  And when it comes to loving our neighbor, we could start by listening to them and not cross contaminating the veggies in the shop.  That is not very hard, but not doing those little things fails in showing love.

Yet, we are to love our neighbor, even our enemy.  My son may never go to that sandwich shop again, but the motivation is out of self-preservation and not animosity.

We forgive, but sometimes, it is important to remember.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.