The sun seared his face and he could feel the skin tightening at his temple and cheek.
There was a buzzing from a bug flying round, or maybe in his mind from the heat, and then there were the thorns that ripped into his flesh.
He would adjust the position of his limbs and his frame to accommodate the ripping thorn that tore through him like a nail through cartilage, and as he withdrew his limbs from the twisted nest, he thought of how the process worked.
As he entered the vine to pick at the fruit, the leaves would first grasp; then, when body’s (or brain’s?) response was a quick react to the bondage and mild sting from barbed leaf, like the response of fish to hook, the trap would be set by larger thorn hidden by leaf on even larger vine and “HA-ZAH”, the human fish would twist and flail and become ever more entwined in the thorny straight-jacket of the blackberry thicket.
He learned, in time, that the best response was no response – to the pain, at least.
He would use his mind to overcome the matter.
It is said that if one does not acknowledge the devil, then the devil has no grasp on one’s soul.
Again, an apt use of the mind over matters-at-hand.
The same may be said of the blackberry thorn.
Rather than react to the prick, he learned that if he would respond counter to what is the norm (a quick flight from that initial needle prick from the nettled (needled) leaf), he could then reverse the lock-hold, and remove himself from the slicing bondage.
To respond, not as the devil and its design intends, but to counter by first ignoring the pain and then to move in the opposite direction (to “go forth, and sin no more”).
Rather than pull away from the vine, he would push further into its depths, thus releasing the point of leaf-hook, and avoiding the deep-digging and more prolific barbs-of-the-vine.
He would be free, by countering.
He thought then of the design of the thicket, and how the Lord, in His infinite glory, designed both good and the bad with equal efficacy. He has dominion over the devil, just as the Christ has proven, but He has dominion over the design of the devil as well.
From the thicket’s perspective, the vine and its thorn protects its fruit (perhaps?); but to propogate one’s self, it is incumbent
He would not be a fish, and he would not be caught by device of the thicket.
He looked at his arms where vine had succeeded in scratching at his skin, and his hands so stained in dark berry juice and he thought of his Savior.
It was He who gathered the fishers of men, but the barb and the hook on He would suffer.
If only he could have escaped the bondage of the thorn and the nail; but just as the picker of the vine, he had to drive deeper into the lair to release that which will sustain.
For the picker of the vine, it is the berry; for the Lord, it would be his lambs.
He sighed and thought how good the berries would taste about Christmas time, and he smiled.
The pain of the release was worth the gain imparted on body and on soul.
For the
