The Penitent Plum Poacher

Stealing fruit from Jaybird’s orchard was risky, but like Adam and Eve I succumbed to irresistible temptation, climbed a tree, and filled my pockets with sweet, juicy plums, dismissing the theft’s severity by assuming the old black man wouldn’t miss the few I plucked. While shinnying down, I came face to face with him. “Gotcha!” he said. The punishment was swift and painful, rendering well-striped buttocks. Tossing aside the willow switch, he said, “I hope you enjoy those plums.” For a while, I dearly hated the man who was my boyhood best friend and mentor.

Certain I’d tell other fruit-filching hellions, making an example of me was excellent deterrence: Not another plum was stolen. But being the honorable man he was — always a loving, second father to me, he acted as if nothing happened the next time we met. Lounging on his porch, looking across Dad’s Mississippi Delta cotton fields while sharing a bowl of plums, he looked me squarely in the eye — his way of telling me to pay attention, and began imparting another life lesson that has remained imbedded in my mind ever since. Opening his tattered old Bible, he told me to read aloud two verses from Hebrews, Chapter 12: “For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives. Furthermore we have fathers of our flesh who correct us, and we give them reverence.” Satisfied that the verses were fixed in the mind of the boy whom he called his “white son,” he began teaching. “My child, your punishment for knowingly committing a wrongful act seems to you to be the result of anger and even hatred on my part, but in reality it was an act of love, just as God in Heaven, although patient to the extreme, loosens His wrath against stiff-necked children who continue in their evil ways, even though aware that what they do displeases the Father. “God’s punishment, as did your switching, provides the intended result: deterrence. Chastened, His iniquitous children repent of their wicked ways, as you must do. Then they understand better that during this short earthly existence, fearing God is wrong because loving Him and fearing Him at the same time is not what the Giver of all wants. “Instead, those who remain faithful despite life’s suffering and sorrow must continue day by day to devote themselves to loving God, but fearing His wrath. Satan’s approach is just the opposite: He wants people’s souls as much as God does, so he seduces them by temporarily rewarding their iniquity. But Satan is the master deceiver — he hates God’s children, but hides this hatred behind a phony façade of love. For believers, the lesson is simple: Love God, hate Satan.” I kissed the master teacher and father who blessed my life so greatly, and left with a better attitude toward the Father of all. I must love Him, but fear His wrath. Heading home, I reflected on what I became that day: the penitent plum poacher.