Sausages don't grow on trees...

It's Harvest Festival season - well, we're having our Thanksgiving at AFC on Sunday at least - and a Harvest Social Evening the night before.

I got hooked on Thomas Hardy's novels when I was at school and had to study Far From The Madding Crowd for O Level English.  I love his description of rural Victorian life including characters like the obsessive Farmer Boldwood, disasters like a rain soaked harvest and comedic incidents such as the Gallery Choir sabotaging the new church harmonium!

Yet I suspect Hardy's Dorset is as much a myth as Walter Scott's tartanisation of life north of the border in the 1800's.  It's easy to paint a idealised picture of the countryside, a rural idyll when in fact life for the farm labourer was just hard, hard, hard.

Today's countryside issues revolve around the complexities of EU subsidies and GM food production as much as the Village Show or Farm Shop.

I have to admit that I'm a 'townie' at heart!  I love the countryside but always want to retreat back to well lit tarmac roads and shopping centres with everything located near a car park.  So I can fully understand the girl in one of my son's classes (years ago) who maintained sausages grew on trees.  I remember being shocked myself to discover, whilst visiting Australia, that pineapples actually grow on the ground.

So how do we approach Harvest Festivals - especially if you're a townie too?!

I think it's interesting to note they are a relatively 'new' church invention - just about a hundred and fifty years old.  We borrowed the idea from village 'Harvest Homes'.  When those celebration got a little rowdy we sanitised them by bringing the 'thanksgiving' into church - exchanging ale for hymns!

In our services this coming Sunday we have a split focus.  In the morning it's very much about 'thanksgiving' alongside opportunities to be generous through our offering to Operation Agri and our support through the giving of our harvest produce to the homelessness charity 'New Hope'.

Then in the evening we're asking one of our members, Dr Bob Bradnock to help us think about things 'ecological'.  All part of seeing the world as a whole - combining our faith and intellect.

Stewardship of the planet is never easy, but neither is it optional - so on Sunday we'll take both the opportunity to sing praise to God for creation and remind ourselves of our responsibility towards it.

With best wishes,

Ian