The Joy of Raspberries

                                       THE JOY OF RASPBERRIES

                                         Guest Writer and Artist: Ken Fellows

breakfast treat ken fellows

     Here’s the secret to successful raspberry picking: think like a raspberry. They’re crafty, deceptive, tricky, and shy. Growing in clumps of 5-8, the ripe ones hide behind unripe relatives to avoid detection. Some – usually the biggest and sweetest – grow solitary and obscure, down low, among bushy green leaves and thorny stems. 

Unlike ground-hugging strawberries with their low ‘fruit-to-leaf’ ratio, raspberry plants grow 4–6 feet tall, supported by foliage-dense, crisscrossing, prickly branches. A good picker must lift, pull down, untangle, turn over, separate, and inspect along rows of plants from all angles to retrieve the red-seeded prey.

      In my small raspberry patch, the hunt is further complicated by entangling weeds with leaves and gray-green color identical to those of the berry bushes. They twist around the berry canes, adding even more cover for the elusive red fruit. Unwinding the ubiquitous weeds from the raspberry plants, enough to pull them by their roots, doubles the picking time without increasing the berry yield. It’s maddening. 

     Maine’s mosquitoes provide the berries with another defense. My berry patch supports hordes of them. During the July picking season, green-headed flies join the battle on the fruit’s behalf, so I’m forced to pick in the sweltering midday because the vexing insects are less active then.

When I march into battle under a blazing, humid afternoon sun, armored against airborne enemies, the core of my protection is an airless, black, netted-nylon ‘jacket’ covering my head to waist. The netting covering my face prevents the ingestion of belly berries, a serious drawback. Below, I wear jeans tucked into tall rubber boots. This is not a cool outfit. It’s sweaty, airless, and hot. Head hot. Body hot. Feet hot. Everything hot, hot, hot.

     Of course, I wear a shirt under the mosquito-netting jacket and douse myself with Cutter’s spray repellent. The little buggers still find ways to get through the clothing and the netting, so no picking session is itch-free. My front-yard berry patch sits next to our street, Chauncey Creek Road, and strollers walking by often comment:

         “How lucky for you to have raspberries to pick.”  

          “Oh yes, lots of fun,” I grumble back.

     Forget the impediments: just gathering the berries isn’t all that easy either. It’s a stand-up job where I hold the collection box in one hand – or precariously cradle it on a bent arm – leaving the other hand free to pluck fruit. But there’s a problem; I can become so engrossed in the search-and-snatch maneuvers that a partly filled box in my non-picking hand is forgotten, tips downward, and half an hour’s work scatters to the ground, irretrievably lost in the thicket. It’s not good if someone is walking by at that moment. I don’t mutter; I explode in a stream of blue language I otherwise use only in front of my exasperating computer.  

     And have I mentioned the mental stressors of raspberry picking? Deep red berries are the object of the hunt. Purple ones are overripe and unusable; yellow-orange to orange-pink ones are tasteless and must wait for the next picking. But what about those turning just faintly purple—or those turning ‘early red’? Pick now or later? Can I pick again in 2 days? Not if it’s raining or if I’ll be busy or away. Almost every picking minute, crucial, stressful decisions must be made.

     If everyone knew the effort involved and the mental toll, they might understand why a commercial pint of raspberries is so expensive.

     There are rewards for hours and hours of berry tending: raspberry shortcakes, pies, and muffins; berries on cereal; and freezer jam, which takes raspberry flavor to a higher level. On a stormy, cold winter’s morning, raspberry jam on warm toast makes life bearable. So I’ll keep fussing with the plants … trimming, fertilizing, rototilling, watering, and battling insects and weeds. And I’ll keep picking, with all its frustrations and hardships. I’ve been doing it for 40 years. I know the price and am willing to pay. I remain ever thankful for the bounty. 

Ken Fellows

Joanna Seibert joannaseibert.com

Easter Thistles

Easter Thistles

Guest Writer: Eve Turek

“Cursed is the ground for your sake;
In toil you shall eat of it
All the days of your life.

 Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you,
And you shall eat the herb of the field.”— Gen. 3: 17b-18 (NIV)

Easter Swallowtails and Thistles

My contemplation of the Easter story this year gave me new insights. In Genesis, we learn that humankind’s beginnings of a conscious, pure connection with God and with this earth began in a garden. I think a lot about this story because my given name is Eve. In the Eden story, humankind lost the close relationship with God as Creator and the tender, loving stewardship of this earth. Curses were spoken. Humans not only acquired knowledge of evil; they could—and did—choose evil. The ramifications extended upward, outward, and downward. In the story, one of the things God declared from that garden as humans were leaving it was that the earth itself would reap the consequences of their choices and would now produce something that had never grown before in that original garden, thorns and thistles. 

Fast-forward, and we see Jesus praying in agony, knowing what he was about to endure and being betrayed by one of his closest friends, in a garden.

The next afternoon, His own story seemed to end as His body was removed from a cross and placed in someone else’s family tomb… in a garden.

I don’t think the location of that tomb was a coincidence. I think the parallels are too striking to ignore. The miracle that followed in that garden reversed everything that had gone wrong in the first garden. When Jesus rose, life triumphed over death, light overwhelmed darkness, and everything associated with humanity’s knowledge of evil, including the fear, the shame, and the curse, found a remedy in that rising. 

With all of these thoughts in my head and heart, after an early service at Saint Andrews, I drove out to Alligator River refuge. I was seeking an Easter-inspired image that might illustrate them. Maybe I should see if the Elizabethan Gardens was open on my way home, I thought.

And then I found the thistles.

Early last week at the refuge, I noticed the swallowtail butterflies had arrived, and I worried for them because I know their favorite plant is thistle and very few had bloomed yet. It seemed too early for the swallowtails to be here without the plants that sustain them. But on Easter Sunday morning, in all the places I know to look, thistles had sprung up in just a few days and were in full flower. And look! The one specific plant that was mentioned, incorporated into the pronouncement of curses the Earth itself must bear, has instead become the source of sustenance for these beautiful swallowtail butterflies—creatures often associated with symbols of resurrection, of spring, of new beginnings, of Easter itself. Jesus is Risen, and that changes everything.

Alleluia, Alleluia.

Eve Turek

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Trust God to be the Judge, Weeds and Wheat

Guest Writers Steve and Sally Harms

Trust God to be the Judge, Weeds and Wheat

This is the first MRI machine ever built that could accommodate a human body, and it was constructed in Paul Lauterbur’s laboratory. The magnet was a one-of-a-kind machine built to specific specifications. Howard Simon, a graduate student at the time, was the operator. Howard was instrumental in producing the first MRI images of the breast.

Much of my career entailed reviewing scientific research. I often remarked to fellow reviewers that 90% of the papers were relatively easy to rank. The real challenge lay in the remaining 10%. Within that group, it was often difficult to distinguish the bottom 5% from the top 5%. Science usually advances like building a brick wall, each discovery resting on what came before it. But true breakthroughs begin with entirely new ideas. Because we are conditioned to evaluate work as an extension of the past, it can be remarkably difficult to tell whether something represents a transformative insight or a dead end.

Here’s one of the earliest images of the brain I created. It’s a slice from an autopsy showing an infarct. This was one of the first instances of synthetic imaging, where intensity represented one parameter and color another. 

I experienced this difficulty firsthand while working in Dr. Paul Lauterbur's laboratory during the early development of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). When he presented the concept to the University as a potential patent, a panel of experts concluded it had no commercial value and declined to fund a patent. At the time, medical imaging was analogous to a photographic process—using X-rays or sound waves that pass through the body to produce an image based on differential absorption or reflection. MRI, by contrast, created images from localized variations in magnetic fields—an entirely different paradigm.

During my senior year of medical school, I worked as a physical chemistry graduate student in the lab at Stony Brook. Despite working under the guidance of a future Nobel Prize winner, I unfortunately didn’t win the student research award presented that year at UAMS. Although my advisor supported my work, he was skeptical about its potential as a medical tool.

The experts were wrong. The University missed substantial royalties from what became a multibillion-dollar industry. Dr. Lauterbur was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2003. MRI was recently recognized by the Wall Street Journal as one of the 25 most important inventions, along with computers and steam engines (April 24, 2026).

Even the most knowledgeable and well-intentioned experts can make profound errors in judgment. In today’s polarized world, it is tempting to judge the actions and motives of others with similar confidence. The readings for today caution us against that impulse.

In Matthew 13:24–30, Jesus describes a field where wheat and weeds grow together. Rather than uprooting the weeds immediately, the master instructs his servants to let both grow until the harvest. What appears to be a weed may, in fact, be wheat not yet fully formed. Premature judgment risks destroying what is good and totally ignores God's ability to change hearts.

This parable is not simply about others—it is about us. The more important question is not, “Who are the weeds?” but, “Am I the wheat?” Psalm 37 addresses the inner response to this reality: “Do not fret because of evildoers.” Their apparent success is temporary. We are instead called to trust, be patient, and refrain from anger and envy. As we see injustice all around us in our world, be comforted in knowing that judgment belongs to God, not to us. 

1 Timothy 4:1-16 adds another layer of caution. Paul warns that some will turn away from the faith and that false teaching may arise from within the community itself. The response is not aggressive sorting of others, but careful attention to one’s own life and doctrine: to remain grounded in truth and to train in godliness.

Our calling, therefore, is not to judge prematurely, but to live faithfully—with humility, patience, and trust in God’s timing. In the end, the harvest will make clear what we cannot.

  Steve and Sally Harms, Morning Reflection, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, May 28, 2026.

Joanna joannaseibert.com