vinea.church: meditations from the vineyard

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit.” ~John 15:5

In 2015, I did a year long apprenticeship in the vineyard, volunteering a day a month that year to work in the vineyard and learn from the vineyard more of what it means to be human, more of what it means to love God, more of what it means to love others. That year, 2015, Cannon Beach Community Church (where I have served as Lead Pastor since 1993) and I were awarded $50,000 through the Lilly Foundation, a grant with the theme of Cultivate the Vineyard: A Journey Together into Fruitful Spiritual Growth. Because of this grant, my wife and I were able to travel in Europe for three months, where I studied viticulture, worked in vineyards harvesting winegrapes, visited sacred pilgrim sites such as Lindisfarne, England, Alsace, France, and St. Hildegard Abbey, Germany. During that pilgrimage, I studied ten of my favorite medieval fruitful heroes of the Christian faith, including Aidan and Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, Hilda of Whitby, Hildegard of Bingen, Bernard of Clairvaux, Francis and Clare of Assisi, Jan Hus, Johannes Tauler, and Martin Bucer. I think of hhis blog as some of the clusters of fruit harvested from that year of apprenticeship in the vineyard.

Grapes, Grain, Olives

The other day, I was reflecting with a friend on the three main agricultural crops of the ancient world in ...

Ash Wednesday Meditation on the Vine

Vine head before pruning: notice the multiple canes coming from the gnarly head. Photo by D. Robinson JOHN 15:1-10 Ash ...

Pruning 101

I spent my first 4 hours pruning a vineyard today at a friend’s vineyard in the Chehalem Mountains AVA near ...

Roots

Roots. We all have them though they are hidden beneath the surface of our lives. Oddly, we seldom think about ...

As a drop of water

"As a drop of water poured into wine loses itself, and takes the color and savor of wine; or as ...

Remain in Me

Among all the New Years Resolutions I've kept over the years, the most helpful has been to memorize and carry ...

Vineyard Gallery

Photos by Thomas Robinson, used by permission ...

Bingen

The fire has its flame and praises God. The wind blows the flame and praises God. In the voice we ...
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