Apple Butter and Agency

It’s apple season here in New England. Harvest time, and I made my first batch of apple butter last week. It’s too runny, and it looks mottled and unappetizing in blue jars (what did I expect?). Still, though, I eat it on fresh bread and on oatmeal and off a spoon.

The fruit was good, and so the apple butter is too; even if it is runny and tart.

Jesus talked about fruit, too. He said, “ye shall know them by their fruits”. Of course, Jesus was talking about false prophets, and I about personal economics.

Is the fruit good? I ask when puzzled.  Dichotomous thinking is alluring; it’s simple, easy. But in reality, fruit is not so much divided into “good” and “bad” as it is into function. Eating apples. Cooking apples. Cider apples. Fertilizer.

I don’t think Jesus was championing dichotomous thinking. I believe he was teaching us, again, about priorities; which are a function of agency.

Agency is not merely the right to choose; it is the word we use to describe one’s entire sphere of influence or power. 

Is the fruit good? Does it increase or decrease my ability to affect change in this world?

If it makes me healthier, it expands my agency. 

If it results in good, then it is good. 

If it results in something really good, then it is worthwhile. 

I apply this test to small religious practices, to how I spend my time, to where I put my money, to whom I interact with. 

What is the fruit? Is it good? How good? Does it expand my agency?

A few examples:

• I am increasingly choosing to walk instead of drive, to use less plastic, to eat less meat. The fruit is good; I spend less money, I am kinder to my planet, I am kinder to my body.
• I am parenting with less anger. The fruit is good; our relationship is better, behavior is improved, I am less tired.
• I wear my garments part-time. The fruit is good; I am spared from infection, and I also participate in a practice I find meaningful.

We have a duty to expand our agency to the level which we are capable of managing. We ought to influence this world for good.

And what does it mean, that someday we will be like God, having power and principalities and worlds without end, but that our agency is ever-increasing? It is in the nature of eternal creatures to handle the powers of creation with care and righteousness.

Joseph Smith famously defended the Restored Gospel by saying, “It tastes good”. Like apple butter.