What's with the Fruit?
The Three Verities and Fruit: Why an Apple, a Pear, and a Fig?
Offered up by Byron Harris, Co-Owner of Splintered Light Bookstore
conceived by
As conceived by Pastor Wade Bradshaw in the Spring of '07, Three Things constitutes discussions centering on one or two or all of the three verities:
Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. Speakers talk on an agreed upon topic and try
to connect our cultural mores and ideas with these still powerful virtues. Wilson Brissett would later find the phrasing that captured the idea best: talks about what matters most. Our hope every talk is that frutiful dialogue will ensue (sorry...)
Wade enlisted his co-worker/assistant in the Trinity Presbyterian Church Mission/Outreach office, Katie Pennock and they built a team to start this project:
my wife Rie and I of Splintered Light Bookstore, Wilson himself as he finished up his Phd in the UVA English Literature Dept., and Albert Lee of Mars Hill Audio, recently of the Trinity Fellows. Once we formed the core, we began working on venues and calendars and speakers. We started at Java Java on the downtown mall that fall and have bounced from place to place before landing at Cville Coffee this fall. As we launched, we really needed a logo of sorts to "brand" the project.
We asked some accomplished graphic designers to offer up ideas, but given the lack of input and concept we could provide, little came of that effort. Finally, I tossed out the fruit idea and for better or worse, it carried the day. Below is an explanation of the whys and wherefores of those three fruit. The concept cuts both ways: truth and lies, beauty and our often ugly human nature, goodness and its absence, evil. There is ambiguity and uncertainty which works well in a poetic sense. These three pieces of fruit stand as true, good, and beautiful yes, but with their own resonances and complexities.
The Thing about Things
"No ideas but in things" from William Carlos Williams 1944 poem A Sort of Song
Williams had a theory that poetry/art was about the tangible, not the big idea. He advocated that poets leave aside traditional poetic forms and unnecessary literary allusions, trying to see the world directly and using a language and form appropriate to the subject itself. In that sense, any three seemingly random objects might work, Just loose bit of the flotsam and jetsam of life. But empty symbols make their own mischief in this day and age, so we needed meaning; these three particular fruit each carry a certain freighted trajectory in art, literature, and scripture. There are some excellent books on the power of still life portraits, thing theory in lit-crit circles
remain quite sexy, and each verity has its own body of work.
An Apple representing Truth
Everything about the Fall centers on truth. God spoke truth and wisdom, Adam and Eve chose to believe the serpent's lies, thus sin enters the world. The first couple did not discern truth, though outside of Eden, they "got" God's sovereignty. So the fruit, taken from the tree of good and evil, ultimately cinches up with the ultimate truth. This cascades through the ages til the new Adam, Christ, stands before Pilate as he sneers: "What is truth?" Not just the fact of God's authority and power, yet the truth of scripture hangs in this tension. Does one believe in these primeval sagas, did they happen or are they pithy myths that one can use with unruly kids? Is it Eden et al or the random acts of evolution? And given our post-lapse reality, Jesus-redeemed bifocals, it still can get blurry. Lastly, was it an apple? The text just says fruit; Milton made the leap to Golden Delicious. This goes to the eternal elusiveness that truth often carries. Was there a second shooter on the grassy knoll? I don't know and I can't prove it either way. I firmly believe in absolute truth(s), just find them hard to obtain, to put my hands on so to speak. The real, nuts and bolts truth is rascally, hard to pin down. And let's not forget the nowadays iconic images of the Beatles' label and the Mac/IPod.... Resources about Apples and Truth forthcoming
The Pear as a Symbol of Beauty
Pears are beautiful in the fullest sense, God's creation, etc. There is much intrinsically right about pears and little one could describe as bad. Yet the speaker in the Williams' poem (ok it is plums but you get the idea) and young heathen Augustine succumbed to envy and covetousness and gluttony. They stole wily-nily, just because they could. Like the old Nike Michael Jordan ads ("it must be the shoes"), they try to assign blame on the objects of their lust, not themselves (though the soon-to-be Bishop of Hippo is frightfully self-aware and echoes the Exile from Eden tropes in this episode of The Confessions). Pears are great, but us sinners can take something wonderful and make it bad. I have to fight my cynical self to accept and enjoy the beauty God has given us. I can be frolicking on a temperate Summer day and find myself thinking "Winter is coming." It is wrong but I cannot stop myself and yet another way we can twist the beautiful by our cynical, suspicious selves. Beauty/Pear Resources forthcoming
Figs Goodness
Ok the proverbial fig leaf failed to hide Adam and Eve from God's wrath. And Jesus curses the fig tree outside the Temple for being barren. Where is the goodness? Jesus seems to be defining good and evil based on his expect-ations. Figs trees are supposed to make figs. We are supposed to do good, both in the faiths and the works senses (yes, grace alone, but obedience.) There are all sorts of arguments of the
fig tree symbolizing the Temple, the Sadduces and Pharisees, the Israelite religion as a whole. But Jesus is "the vine" (John 15) and we get grafted in. So goodness is out there, possible, already around the corner. There is a kingdom-like quality of alreadiness/ not yet. This humble, not so lovely fruit is good, if we can wait for it. Good/Fig Resources forthcoming
