“While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” (Genesis 8:22)
Most of you know that I am an NPR nerd. I listen when I am in my car, commuting to Memphis. I listen while in my car as I travel to meet other faith leaders who have also re-discovered God’s economy. Well, I lost a friend this past week, NPR contributor, author and culinary griot, Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor. Vertamae, along with my time in Newport, AR this past year, has influenced me and my theological perspective of “Re-Discovering God’s Economy.” She quotes Langston Hughes’ “Quarter of the Negroes:”
“In the pot behind the paper doors on the old iron stove what’s cooking?
What’s smelling, Leontyne?
Lieder, lovely Lieder and a leaf of collard greens.
Lovely Lieder, Leontyne.”
Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor speaks of the care of picking greens; the meticulous care and love employed to insure the collard greens are harvested properly. They must be picked and 
cleaned individually to insure that not one is wasted or damaged. Great care is employed as the fields are tended to yield the optimum harvest of the greens when they are ripe for harvest. Isn’t that what God does for us? Since being blessed to coordinate the Financial Leadership for Ministry Program here at MTS, God has transformed my mind, and brought new insight on the effects of money and its impact on the mission and ministry of the Church. “Re-Discovering God’s Economy; Living a 4G life (LTE),” involves a new understanding that the earth is God’s, the earth and everything and everyone that in it (Psalm 24:1, paraphrased).
Again, most of you know that I am an NPR nerd, and most of you know I love to glean the fields of farmers who continue to practice the biblical tenet of gleaning. Already missing Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor, I am convinced that her wisdom about God’s Economy will live on as we live into this biblical tenet. I invite you to listen to this griot, this wise woman, who understood how to make the connection. Click here to listen.
Peace
Dr. Debra
