Traverse City — Leviticus says: “And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of the corners of thy field when thou reapest, neither shalt thou gather any gleaning of thy harvest: thou shalt leave them unto the poor, and to the stranger.”
Much of the Bible is concerned with land. Where we live on it, how we grow our food in it, and how we relate to it. Remember, God made Adam from the dust of the earth after all. But the truth is we are pretty removed from the land these days, so Leviticus 23:22 ends up being one of those biblical passages that just kind of gets lost on our all-too modern hearts and minds. Most of us don’t do any reaping or harvesting; we go to Meijer and order through Instacart.
But just because you or I don’t own a little plot of land where we grow fruits or vegetables doesn’t mean that no one does. There are still farms and farmers, and there are still leftover crops and gleaners. Leviticus is still relevant.
I was just outside Traverse City at the base of the Leelanau Peninsula to glean blueberries on a sunny Friday in early September. Bulldog Berries is a small farm on East Harrys Road. It’s normally a U-Pick blueberry farm, but on Sunday there were no people paying to pick, only gleaners picking for charity.
Gleaning today isn’t the same as it was in the time of Joshua or David, though that kind of gleaning did continue for quite some time. European people still gleaned all the way up and into the 18th and 19th centuries to sustain their families.
Today, most gleaning is done by volunteers who give their time to harvest for those less fortunate. The organizers of the blueberry glean in Traverse City told me that generally farmers call them near the end of the season when they have crop left that they can’t possibly sell. Better to give it to those in need than let it rot in a field. So, on Sunday, people wandered down the dusty two-track road and into the quiet orchard to pick blueberries for the Goodwill Food Rescue program.
There was a diverse smattering of people picking away under the pastoral sky. The soft hum of field crickets were interrupted by light chatter as sweet blueberries were plucked in bunches from the little bushes.
A couple of older women spoke about how they are struggling to keep their churches alive. A mom was telling her kids to slow down. An older man picked alone, methodically. I, eavesdropping, heard a young man who works for Habitat Humanity explaining to another gleaner that he works with people who have different opinions, but he finds that it doesn’t really matter on the job site because everyone is there to help.
As for the process of gleaning the blueberries; it was quite pleasant. When ripe, they come off in easy handfuls. We each carried our own rectangular basket, picking at the full bushes and popping a few in our mouths every few minutes. The majority found their way down into the basket and then, when full, finally over to the van parked at the edge of the field.
Meandering through the rows of blueberry bushes, I listened to the conversations happening around me. I watched the other gleaners, trying to figure out who they are and why they are here. I thought about how nice of a thing it is. How peaceful, decent, and kind it is. The people who give their time to go pick for the sake of others are just good people, plain and simple.
In our secular day and age, there’s a tendency to forget where our morality comes from. We all kind of foolishly think that we came to being good people or are doing right things through our own rationalism or logic. But it’s not true.
In general, our society and our morality have been coasting on the fumes of the Bible, and a more religious society, for a long time. Even if people don’t cite scripture to explain why they do what they do, the truth is, if they trace it back far enough and are honest with themselves, it’s the old verses we have internalized as our unacknowledged foundation of right and wrong.
I didn’t hear anyone quoting Leviticus as we plucked our blueberries for the poor, despite us all clearly partaking in something biblically sanctioned. All the gleaners were simply living out the old morality, formed so long ago they don’t even remember where it came from.
So now, in 2025, the gleaners are there gleaning for others because they are good people, and good people give to those who are less fortunate, and that’s that.
Fish don’t know they swim in water.
O.W. Root is a writer based in Northern Michigan, with a focus on nature, food, style, and culture. Follow him on X @OW_Root.
