The nights are drawing in and autumn seems to have ousted summer. It wasn't so long ago that it was still light at 9pm but now it's getting dark by 7pm. There's a definite chill in the air.
At this time of year, in many British communities, people still give thanks for harvest time - in schools and churches. For me, growing up in a village that was surrounded by productive farmland, the idea of harvest festivals seemed perhaps more pertinent than it might have done to city dwellers. We saw combine harvesters scything the wheat and we helped to pick the potatoes and the peas. We knew for certain that our food came to us from the very earth that we walked upon.
As an erstwhile choirboy in Holy Trinity Church, I knew the harvest hymns by heart and watched small children bringing baskets of produce to the altar. It was a time of celebration.
For decades, a BBC TV Sunday institution has been a programme called "Songs of Praise". The format is quite simple really. The cameras visit different churches to record congregations singing hymns in unison. Of course, unlike ordinary Sundays, the pews are always filled and people are always nicely attired. They are clearly told to ignore the cameras.
I now invite you to sing along to "We Plough The Fields And Scatter" - Britain's favourite harvest-time hymn (written by a German). And while you are singing along please observe the multicultural nature of the congregation - like a beautiful rainbow pattern... See Michael Caine at 2:22 - he has been putting away the pies.
We harvest but we don't have celebrations. we are missing something when we don't stop and consider our harvest.
ReplyDeleteGiving thanks for the magic.
DeleteIt has always been a special time of year for me, too, not only because my (back then) association with the church and singing in the choir. From early childhood, my parents always made sure that my sister and I spend a lot of time outdoors. They taught us about plants and anmials, and we often walked in the fields, between orchards and vineyards, or in woodland. This has stuck with me to this day, and I am grateful for the (literally) down-to-earth education I have received.
ReplyDeleteThat was a great philosophy your mum and dad put into practice.
DeleteIs that really Michael Caine with the snowy white curls?
ReplyDeleteI remember one summer going out to the fields to stitch closed the sacks of potatoes for transport to the markets.
No, it is not Michael Caine! I was kidding! By the way, Phoebe's current best friend at nursery school is currently a little girl called Elsie! She is almost three.
DeleteOur village church was always full of home grown produce at harvest festival time, never a tin or packet, like you we all knew where our food came from and what it took to grow.
ReplyDeleteI am glad that this post chimed with you PP.
DeleteThis was the first hymn I can remember learning. I'd just started school in September and we went to the local church for a special children's service.
ReplyDeleteHow sweet and I am glad this blogpost echoed for you Carol. I don't suppose they sing that harvest hymn in Spain.
DeleteI don't think they do, it's a year-round harvest here.
DeleteThe harvest festival broke the monotony of Sunday school in my childhood, as people brought to church their offerings. Given it was all dairy farming, I wonder if there was a plentiful measure of milk. Maybe there were some home grown vegetables.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the children went along dressed as vegetables. You might have been a potato.
DeleteHarvest was once a joyous time to celebrate that all had been safely gathered in. Now we have strawberry in our supermarket all year round. Great hymn choice.
ReplyDeleteYou should sing it in Algarve when harvesting the japs.
DeleteMichael Caine's hippie younger brother, perhaps?
ReplyDeleteYes - known as Sugar Caine.
DeleteI am very glad I grew up on a funny farm, surrounded by real farms, that I helped my grandparent garden, and my grandmother preserve produce.
ReplyDeleteGreat early lessons that will be part of your fundamental view of life.
DeleteAfter having listened to a podcast where the person being interviewed theorizes with some authority that religion was begun as a response to the observable patterns of the seasons and how they affected available foods, this resonates as simply one of the many ways we still worship the same patterns. Whereas the ancients may have had gods that ruled specific celestial bodies and some that ruled specific foods, and some that ruled rain or fertility, we have one "Almighty God" who does it all.
ReplyDeleteFood, the weather, the earth and the rhythm of the seasons - these form the platform upon which everything else is built. Instinctively, I feel a greater pull towards belief systems that predated Christianity by many millennia that to God and Jesus. They are really new kids on the block.
DeleteSame precepts, different churches and costumes.
DeleteIs that really Michael Cain? Looks kinda' like him but no ...... Wonder how many times that congregation had to practice before the filming? Lovely children delivering the produce. My father and mother (both Methodist ministers) would not have known what to do with that many participants in Sunday services! Lovely singing voices and everybody dressed "to the nines" is nice to see.
ReplyDelete"Songs of Praise" always creates a rosy but false impression of what it is like in most English churches on Sundays.
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