Weekday Devotion With Pastor Chris

Years ago Don Wilkins (our former organist) and his wife invited Bonnie and me to their weekend cottage near Ligonier.  We had a wonderful time.  Towards the end of the day they took us into the woods for a mushroom hunt.  I love mushrooms, but the only ones I had ever had are the ones you find in supermarkets and restaurant menus.  Don and Collette sent some of the mushrooms we found home with us.  They were incredible – so much better than anything we had ever tasted before – and I understood immediately why some people love to hunt them.

     It was the memory of that day that led me to read an article about some poisonous mushrooms that first appeared in The Atlantic just over a year ago.  The piece was about a particular species, Amanita phalloides popularly known as “death cap mushrooms,” which have spread throughout North America.  Once ingested, severe illness can start as soon as six hours later, but it usually takes longer and can hit as much as 36 hours or more after the mushroom was consumed.  Severe liver damage is usually apparent after 72 hours, and fatality can occur after a week or longer.  It is a brutal process.
 
     There is no antidote for death cap mushrooms.  There is only treatment; primarily lots of fluids, and when the liver begins to fail a liver transplant.  A typical year might see anywhere from five to twenty poisonings, but on average there is just one death per year in all of North America.    However, that is expected to increase as the species continues to spread.

     Poison cap mushrooms didn’t start here.  Their home was Europe where the mushrooms have grown for centuries in deciduous forests and where they remain the leading cause of mushroom poisonings there to this day.  It is believed that they first showed up on the East Coast in the early 1900s.  The first ones in California were found on the grounds of the Hotel Del Monte in Monterey in 1938.  They spread into the Bay Area where they have now become common.  Today they are more abundant in California than in their native European habitat.

     Here is the part that struck me: poison cap mushrooms taste really good.  That just doesn’t seem fair.  And because the symptoms can hit much later, it can be difficult to identify the cause of one’s illness.  Again, unfair.  But whoever said life was fair?  The lesson in all of this is that if you are going to eat wild mushrooms (which are, in fact, fantastic), you better know your species.  Otherwise, the rule of thumb should be the one I learned in Boy Scouts, “Don’t eat wild mushrooms.” 

     There are plenty of things in life that taste pretty good but can do us great harm.  Nurturing a grudge is one of them.  I was reminded of that the other day when I found myself dwelling on something that someone had done to me years ago.  I was tempted to stay there for a while – tempted to let my anger build at the memory.  Why does that feel so satisfying?  Holding on to that stuff, however, is like eating the mushroom: it can taste good in the moment but it will poison our souls.  Far better to follow the way that Jesus has laid out before us: the way of forgiveness; the way of love.  No, it is not fair.  An eye for an eye is fair.  But whoever said life was fair?

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10)