The Growing Season: Contemplations on Wine and the Soul

By Nelson J Boschman

The Growing Season explores the intersection between vineyard, cellar, tasting room, and soul. It's a closer look at the transformation that occurs from grape to glass, and what that process can teach us about what it means to flourish as human beings.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nelson Boschman
• Release date: Nov 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9781778083112

Nelson J Boschman

Nelson Boschman is a pastor, writer, spiritual director, jazz musician, wine enthusiast, husband, and father of one. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. He is the pastor of spiritual formation at Artisan Church, and a partner of SoulStream, a community that seeks to nurture contemplative experience with Christ, leading to inner freedom and loving service. Connect with him at nelsonboschman.com

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INTRODUCTION

Who could have been more invested in physical life on earth than Jesus? I’ve been preaching lately on consider the lilies of the field. The way he could look around and see anything and make it part of what he was talking about.

—Barbara Brown Taylor

By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see...

—Romans 1:20, The Message

I’ve been searching for a more this-worldly spirituality.

Something not so fixated on questions of where we go when we die.

Something more inclined to explore what it means to live well, to flourish as humans, here and now.

Something a little less pearly gates and a lot more consider the lilies.

I’ve been searching for a good while. I’ve met obstacles and challenges. For one thing, I’m a pastor, and as it turns out, many church folk are fairly focused on the next world.

I’m also a musician and I’ve led musical worship in church for years. One time, I got some feedback I didn’t expect and will never forget.

The sermon was about an ancient Israelite king acting in a way that was consistent with God’s intent: rebuilding Jerusalem, restoring city walls, looking after the poor. I wanted our worship that morning to reflect God’s clear concern for the here and now. I felt energized by these physical, earthy, this-world themes. (You know, because of my ongoing search.) In preparation, I went to the Psalms. In this ancient prayer book, rocks and trees, fowl and fish, streams and stars are all handiwork of the Divine, elements of a world God loves and invites humans to care for.¹ Because creation matters deeply, we also find poetic prayers about what it means to govern with justice and mercy in the Psalms.²

For worship that morning, I chose songs that echoed that same language. Songs that were both this-worldly and centred on Scripture. They spoke of God as the God of the broken, the friend of the weak. The God who lifts the needy from the ashes and heals the barren.

In my mind, it was one of the most down-to-earth worship sets I’d ever put together. The congregation seemed super into it. They sang loudly, with lifted hands and hearts ablaze.

As soon as I sat down after the last song, a kind, older woman sitting in the row behind me tapped my shoulder. I turned around. She leaned in close and whispered,

When you lead worship, you lead us right up to the gates of heaven.

You have got to be kidding, I thought. I’m putting down city-building and justice and she’s picking up fluffy clouds and cream cheese.

Thank you, I said quietly and turned back around.

She meant well. I received it as a compliment. Musical worship ought to give rise to a sense of the transcendent. I’m glad those songs helped that woman feel something Beyond. But at that moment, I cared more about the Immanent.

There’s a healthy tension here, of course. All of it matters. Unseen and seen. Spirit and body. Heaven and earth. But, to me, things seemed out of balance.

The spirituality I’ve been searching for invites me to notice what Jesus noticed. Lilies and sparrows. Sheep and shepherds. Vines and branches. He always seemed to call folks’ attention to the concrete. To the material. To things people can see, in order to evoke a different kind of seeing.

Jesus’ spirituality was next-level earthy. It was also radically inclusive. In one breath, he’s telling us that God cares about birds. In the next, he’s saying, God loves humans even more. People who wrote the earliest accounts of Jesus’ life said he was never without a story.³ He wanted those he encountered to see themselves, to see their own lived experience, in what he said and taught. There was room for everyone in his stories, including those society excluded. And he made it a regular practice to call out anyone who claimed otherwise.⁴

Like so many others, I’m becoming more and more captivated by what Jesus embodied most clearly: a spirituality for the rest of us.

I’ve been searching for a more this-worldly spirituality.

And like a gravitational pull, there’s been a growing sense that it’s been searching for me.

In many ways, this book is a chronicling of that search. One that has only intensified over the years. One that led me to spend my sabbatical in more agrarian settings than I usually inhabit.

One that deepened my interest in wine.

I’m curious about your interest in wine, too. Here’s one question I’d love to know your answer to: What comes to mind when you think of the wine industry?

A highbrow hobby for rich people?

Pretense and condescension?

An elitist tribe that caters only to the insiders?

To some, the wine industry equals wine snobbery.

In my experience, I’ve seen very little elitism. Most winefolk I’ve met are not only professionals but enthusiasts. They’re amateurs in the original (French) sense of the word: those who love. They’re fanatical about wine and everything to do with it: soil and seasons, vineyards and varietals, cellaring and celebrating. They’re passionate about their role in growing grapes, making wine, and helping others appreciate it. And they’re quite happy to share their knowledge with anyone willing to listen and learn. Wine snobs do exist, of course. Those who appoint themselves as presiders over a world where, if you have the right credentials, if you know the right people, and if you drink the right wines, you belong. And if you don’t, you may as well steer clear.

Yet, another sort of movement is cropping up. A growing group of enthusiasts and professionals are hosting a different kind of conversation. One where everyone is invited.

A good example is the Wine For Normal People podcast, a wide-ranging but easygoing discussion of wine issues for non-experts.⁵ Most new episodes begin with host Elizabeth Schneider saying something like, Thanks for downloading Wine for Normal People Radio, the podcast for people who like wine but not the snobbery that comes with it. Schneider’s tone, manner, and humour set me at ease right away. I felt like I belonged in the conversation. And while the vibe is accessible, it’s clear she knows what she’s talking about. In fact, Schneider has now written a book by the same title as the podcast. Whether you’re just beginning to learn about wine or know a little but want to take a deeper dive, she’s a good companion for all of that.

Another is the book, The New Wine Rules by acclaimed wine writer Jon Bonne. On the back cover, Bonne says, There are few greater pleasures in life than enjoying a wonderful glass of wine. So why does finding and choosing one you like seem so stressful? Now, becoming a happier, more confident wine drinker is easy. The first step is to forget all the needlessly complicated stuff the experts have been telling you.⁶ The New Wine Rules helps you sort through what can feel like an overwhelming amount of insider info and language when it comes to wine. And how to prioritize your time and attention, not to mention budget. Jon Bonne is like the Rick Steeves of the wine world.

My friend and certified sommelier, Ashley West, is another good example of someone who makes wine appreciation more enjoyable and accessible. She describes her business, Somm at Home, as an unpretentious approach to wine tasting, events and education in the heart of the Fraser Valley.⁷ West has designed a beautiful, straightforward process to discover, taste, and learn about BC wines from the comfort of your home. If you live in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, Somm at Home is worth checking out.

Unpretentious. Uncomplicated. Wine delight for the rest of us.

Like the wine industry, many books about spirituality and matters of the soul can also make people feel like outsiders. Unless you read certain authors, believe certain things, and use a certain vocabulary, you have nothing to add to the dialogue.

You have picked up a book on wine and the human soul. Two topics that each have significant potential to make you, the reader, feel like you don’t belong. You’re only a few pages in so far, and I’d love for you to make it to the end. So I thought I’d spend part of the Introduction trying to set your mind at ease.

Here’s how I want this book to feel: I want to invite you to this conversation like my friend Paul invites people to play disc golf.

Paul is the best disc golf player I know. He enters tournaments. He even designed a municipal disc golf course. But by his own admission, he’s a small fish in a big pond when it comes to his ability. And still, Paul is the closest thing I may ever know to an expert. So when an opportunity arose to play my first round ever, with Disc Golf Paul of all people, I was immediately intimidated.

I began to think of what my drives (aka tee shots) would look like compared to his. I feared what his more experienced friends would think of a neophyte joining their foursome. I envisioned shot after crappy shot drifting into the towering, impenetrable blackberry bushes that hovered around the edges of seemingly every fairway. (That only happened once. And since I was fortunate enough to be playing with another buddy who eats thorny, brambly blackberry bushes for breakfast, my woefully errant shot was retrieved.)

But before these worrisome thoughts could take root, Paul’s gift for enthusiastic education and radical inclusion helped me set them aside.

Boschman! Are you coming to play?

Yeah, I’ve never really played before though.

"Who cares. You will absolutely love it.

Do you have your own discs?"

I think I can get a couple.

"Great. I’ve got a whole bunch you can borrow

if you need them."

When we got out to the course, Paul greeted me with a huge smile, a massive hug, and a loud, enthusiastic voice that made me feel he was beside himself at the chance to shoot some discs with me.

Even though I was keenly aware of my newbie status as a disc golfer, Paul made me feel like I belonged. Like I mattered. That this eighteen-hole excursion was a safe space to learn, grow, and fling a disc or two into the blackberries.

I want you to feel that same safety as you journey through this book.

I am truly honoured you’re here.

Let me say just a bit more about where we’re going.

We’re here to talk about wine and the soul. Wine, as we all know, doesn’t begin as wine. It starts as something different: a grape. It only becomes wine because it goes through a wide-ranging transformative process. Our souls—our inner beings, the essence of who we are—undergo a similar journey. We’re going to explore both. One in dialogue with the other.

You and I, you and you, you and God.

I’ve said this isn’t a book about wine. But that’s not totally true. I still want you to learn a few wine things. And since we’re talking about transformation and change, we’re going to follow the winemaking process in chronological order:

Soil

Vineyard

Harvest

Cellar

Bottle

In short, we’re going from dirt to glass.

At the same time, we know that the inward soul journey is not always a neat, linear process. Nor is the winemaking journey at times, come to think of it. So we’ll allow for detours, side roads, and pit stops along the way.

An earthy, this-worldly spirituality.

That’s been my search. And I can’t shake the fact that it’s also been searching for me. Something has led you to pick up this