The band in the box pew are in full swing. Susanna plays the violin, AJ the accordion, and I’m singing “We plough the fields and scatter …” for the fourth time in as many weeks. Harvest is a busy time of year for a vicar with five churches in his benefice. This one, St Mary’s in Tyberton, is lit with bright candles and bedecked with branches. Lyn, one of our church wardens, has made a harvest loaf for communion, a symbol of divine generosity.
During the first hymn, the children, with their gifts, head up to the altar rail. They step into the chancel slowly, with trepidation, then race back to the pews, holding hands and heads held high. The sanctuary soon becomes covered with donations – dried pasta, potatoes, tins of rice pudding. Rural poverty is still a very hidden problem and these food parcels will in the holidays go to local children who receive free school meals in term time.
After a Bible reading about angels gathering the harvest of the Earth, we head outside to perform a Caim ritual: an ancient, embodied prayer of thanksgiving and protection. As we settle into a circle, I draw, with a staff, a circle of protection around us, as a symbol of the unchanging seasons. Then, as with a Celtic cross, I mark the ground with the cross beams that bring in Christ, the angels, the ancestors and the promise of Earth-healing.
This week, we will gather for a plough blessing in a barn on the land farmed by another church warden, Louise. Soon, if weather allows, the plough will turn the soil over at another turn in the seasons. For centuries the blessing took place in January on “plough Monday”, but here, I moved them to coincide with harvest celebrations.
The gathering includes a benediction, and cider will be poured on to the mouldboard, the share and the shin of the plough – an act that reminds me of the poem Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins, where he gives thanks to God for the colour and contrast of creation:
“Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
/ And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.”
We will end the blessing by singing, for the last time this year, “We plough the fields and scatter…”
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