How about a new theme for harvest festivals? There is some embarrassment now in churches wondering how to dispose usefully of the fruit, veg and groceries presented for traditionl displays. My former church always had a very large loaf, designed like a sheaf of corn, as the centre-piece. We never quite knew what to do with it; come to that we didn't know what to do with baskets of fruit and veg which old people did not want; they thought it was charity! We sang with gusto the harvest hymns whose theological content is dubious. 'Give his angels charge at last in the fire the tares to cast....' Thank you Henry Alford (1810-71) The theme of thanksgiving is always going to be central, but the more we learn abut the world of nature, and our own mysterious bodies, the more we shoud be filled with a sense of wonder. Augustine wrote: 'Men go abroad to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge wastes of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.' James Le Fanu has written a fine book called 'Why Us?'* in which he describes the quite unaided progression of the human embryo into adult life, and the so far unexplained functions of the human brain, eye, memory, etc etc. A service with the theme of wonder at what we see around us, and how we see it, would be better than chanting about being 'gathered in, free from sorrow, free from sing...' Harvest planning committees - use you loaf - it's amazing.
*WHY US? 2009 HARPER COLLINS £18.99
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