A Harvest of People by the Rev. Max Coots

Today’s reading is entitled A Harvest of People, also known as the Vegetable Prayer. The Reverend Max Coots (1927-2009) served UU congregations in Upstate New York. He started his career as a Universalist minister, decades before the 1961 merger between the Universalists and the Unitarian denominations into the UUA. Just in case you never heard of a hubbard, it is a very large winter squash.

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Let us give thanks for a bounty of people. For children, who are our second planting, and though they grow like weeds and the wind too soon blows them away. May they remember fondly where their roots are.
For generous friends with hearts as big as hubbards, and smiles as bright as blossoms. For feisty friends as tart as apples.

For continuous friends, who, like scallions and cucumbers, keep reminding us that we’ve had them. For crotchety friends, as sour as rhubarb and as indestructible; For funny friends, as silly as brussels sprouts And serious friends, as complex as cauliflowers and as intricate as onions.

For friends as unpretentious as cabbages and friends, like parsnips, who can be counted on to see you through the winter; For old friends, nodding like sunflowers in the evening; And young friends coming on as fast as radishes.

For loving friends, who wind around us like tendrils and hold us, despite our blights, and wilts, and witherings; And, finally, for those friends now gone, but who fed us in their times so that we might live.

Let us give thanks for the bounty of people in our lives. Amen.