Harvest

There is something very special about an English village church when it is decorated for Harvest Festival.

Those beautifully rich, autumnal colours. The smell of apples and chrysanthemums from gardens and allotments. The glorious morning light coming in through the latticed windows.

When the congregation sings Come Ye Thankful People Come (even a congregation as small as the one at our church yesterday), you get a sense of the people who have been singing this harvest hymn for generations: the farmers, the farmworkers, the ploughmen, the hedgelayers, the planters, the haymakers, the dairy men and women bringing in the cows, doing the milking and churning the butter.

After the service, we pulled the tables up to the chancel to enjoy food brought to share, thankful for what we had and mindful of those who have not.

We think we are so sophisticated but nothing much has changed. Here in rural Dorset, poverty is not just a thing of the past. It’s with us still.

Up on the hill this morning, there is a stillness in the trees. I look out on the view across farmland and also to the sea.

For the beauty of the earth.