{"id":796,"date":"2010-12-28T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-28T01:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/drnorrischumleysatisfiedlife\/2010\/12\/new-grapes-new-year.html"},"modified":"2010-12-28T01:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-12-28T01:00:00","slug":"new-grapes-new-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/drnorrischumleysatisfiedlife\/2010\/12\/new-grapes-new-year.html","title":{"rendered":"New Grapes, New Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><title><\/title><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Dear Friend, here is an article that I wrote awhile back.&nbsp; It&#8217;s one of my favorites.&nbsp; I thought I would share it with you as we approach the New Year.&nbsp; I hope you enjoy it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">&#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">It is deep winter and it has been very cold up north.&nbsp; There is lots of snow on the ground; ice on the roads and sidewalks make moving treacherous.&nbsp; The trees are bare.&nbsp; The birds are searching non-stop for scarce seeds.&nbsp; The garden is long dormant; the stalks and herbs all frost-bitten and long fallen.<span class=\"s1\"><\/p>\n<p><\/span>We had a very rare breeze of warmth the other day, a few days before the&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/drnorrischumleysatisfiedlife\/2008\/12\/index.html%22%20%5Ct%20%22_blank\">New Year<\/a>.&nbsp; It was almost 50 degrees on the mountain, in the dead of winter!&nbsp; Thanks to clouds that moved enough to let some rays shine through, the snow and ice were melting &#8211; the runoff water was flowing. &nbsp;<span class=\"s1\"><\/p>\n<p><\/span>In our sleeping garden my straggly grape vines hung all intertwined in the fence, unruly and overgrown.&nbsp; So many days of temperatures below freezing and harsh north winds had kept me away from a job I knew would mean frozen fingers, windburn, and the risk of rushed over-pruning.&nbsp; I should have pruned two or three months ago, but I just didn&#8217;t have time or desire for such a big no-fun job.&nbsp; Yet, if I did not prune them, we wouldn&#8217;t have many grapes come summer.&nbsp; If I put it off much longer, the canes would soon begin to bud and it would be too late.&nbsp; Truth be told, I didn&#8217;t prune at all last year, and the grapes were a mess: too many vines, few clusters, and resultant fungus did them in.&nbsp; These are special and beloved vines: my sons and I planted them many years ago.<span class=\"s1\"><\/p>\n<p><\/span>So I seized the moment on that mild winter afternoon, with a balmy front of rain and snow to come that night.&nbsp; There wasn&#8217;t a moment to spare. With resurrected summer garden gloves on hand and sheers in hand, I set forth to cut out the old and bring in the new.&nbsp; Totally unexpected, the pruning of the vines became my lesson for the New Year.<span class=\"s1\"><\/p>\n<p><\/span>The overgrown and intertwined branches made me think of times I&#8217;d been overly ambitious, stretching too far, trying to do too many things, wasting time and money and being self-centered.&nbsp; I was tangled-up and needed pruned discipline: one clear path that would lead to the priority.&nbsp; Not a bunch of paths that led me to things and places unimportant.&nbsp; Snipping the dozens of side branches, focusing on the main trunk and retaining only the primary canes inspired me to focus on what I do best &#8211; loving God and doing my best to do His will.&nbsp; I also needed to prioritize making a living, supporting my family by writing and helping others.&nbsp; I made a pile to burn the old branches and canes, some even withered and dead.&nbsp; I asked God for forgiveness for my old fruitless actions and mistakes.<span class=\"s1\"><\/p>\n<p><\/span>I trusted that the remaining vines, cut to the very quick, would indeed bud once spring arrived.&nbsp; I said a prayer internally, &#8220;God, thank you,&#8221; and a prayer for the grape vines, trusting that they would survive the remaining deep-freezes, springing anew with new grapes to eat and juice to drink.&nbsp; What I had dreaded as a no-fun job became something I loved.&nbsp; The big old trunks were ugly and bare now, but the possibility of the sprouting delicate green buds and fertile hanging grapes to come was enlivening.<span class=\"s1\"><\/p>\n<p><\/span>No wonder grapes and grapevines are holy.&nbsp; They teach us so many stories.&nbsp; They are mentioned throughout the Bible, in both the Hebrew and Christian Bible as symbols of fertility, trust in God, and the hope of the Promised Land.&nbsp; In Genesis 6 and 9, Noah is symbolically the first human to cultivate grape vines, but then drinks too much fermented juice becoming drunk.&nbsp; Vineyards awaited the Israelites across the Jordan River holding promise for abundance; Moses receives grapes from his scouts in Numbers 13:23.&nbsp; Grapes and wine were sacrifices in Leviticus and Exodus. Passover celebrations with family and friends feature wines that are blessed, symbolizing freedom and the promise of new lands and lives.<span class=\"s1\"><\/p>\n<p><\/span>Christians remember and internalize Jesus Christ&#8217;s gifts of redemption and salvation from the Last Supper in Matthew 26, symbolized by the eating of unleavened bread as His&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/drnorrischumleysatisfiedlife\/2008\/12\/index.html%22%20%5Ct%20%22_blank\">body<\/a>&nbsp;and the drinking of wine, as His blood.&nbsp; His first miracle was turning water into wine at a wedding at Cana in Galilee in John 2.&nbsp; In the grape, there is salvation.<span class=\"s1\"><\/p>\n<p><\/span>Pruning of the grape vines was a major teaching of Jesus Christ, symbolizing the presence of God in the vineyard and the importance of caring and active maintenance of a physical and spiritual life: God the father as Creator, Christ as the vine, and the church as a kind of garden or fertile garden of God, in John 15:1-8:<span class=\"s1\"><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.<span class=\"s1\"><\/p>\n<p><\/span>Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.<span class=\"s1\"><\/p>\n<p><\/span>Now ye are&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/drnorrischumleysatisfiedlife\/2008\/12\/index.html%22%20%5Ct%20%22_blank\">clean<\/a>&nbsp;through the word which I have spoken unto you.<span class=\"s1\"><\/p>\n<p><\/span>Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.<span class=\"s1\"><\/p>\n<p><\/span>I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.<span class=\"s1\"><\/p>\n<p><\/span>If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.<span class=\"s1\"><\/p>\n<p><\/span>If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.<span class=\"s1\"><\/p>\n<p><\/span>Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">(King James Version)<\/p>\n<p class=\"p6\"><span class=\"s1\"><br \/>\n<\/span>So this New Year, I look back on my pruning experience and feel even closer to God,&nbsp; cleansed and purged, satisfied by a job well done, just in time.&nbsp; I cut away the old, non-producing dead vines leaving only the most important bearers of true fruit.&nbsp; Unfettered and unencumbered by the old, I branch forth anew and so do my holy vines.&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class=\"s1\"><\/p>\n<p><\/span>I will lift a glass of sparkling wine (but only one glass) and say a prayer with friends and family to bring in the New Year, thinking of God and thanking Him for the abundant and fruitful blooms of grace and life to come.<span class=\"s1\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Friend, here is an article that I wrote awhile back.&nbsp; It&#8217;s one of my favorites.&nbsp; I thought I would share it with you as we approach the New Year.&nbsp; I hope you enjoy it. &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; It is deep winter and it has been very cold up north.&nbsp; There is lots&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":171,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-happiness","category-inspiration"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>New Grapes, New Year - Dr. Norris J. Chumley Satisfied Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/drnorrischumleysatisfiedlife\/2010\/12\/new-grapes-new-year.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New Grapes, New Year - Dr. Norris J. 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Chumley Satisfied Life","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/drnorrischumleysatisfiedlife\/2010\/12\/new-grapes-new-year.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"New Grapes, New Year - Dr. Norris J. Chumley Satisfied Life","og_description":"Dear Friend, here is an article that I wrote awhile back.&nbsp; It&#8217;s one of my favorites.&nbsp; I thought I would share it with you as we approach the New Year.&nbsp; I hope you enjoy it. &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; It is deep winter and it has been very cold up north.&nbsp; There is lots&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/drnorrischumleysatisfiedlife\/2010\/12\/new-grapes-new-year.html","og_site_name":"Dr. Norris J. 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