Dickensian Hard Times Now?
Victorian Romanticism to Elizabethan II Pragmatism
Not this year was the chapel, or church, filled for Harvest Festival with the vibrant colours from myriad vegetables at full growth and the organic smell of freshly turned earth drifting in through the open windows…
Not this year were sheaves of wheat standing to attention flanking the large trestle table (actually it might have been an old wallpaper pasting table be-draped with an old brown curtain!) straining under the excess weight of multiple giant marrows, scrubbed spuds, freshly pulled muddy carrots with their tops, runner beans on plates and rhubarb wrapped in newspaper along with tomato trusses, chard, radishes and other prized produce from folks’ allotments and/or their back garden vegetable plots.
Not this year were there prickly brambles from the hedgerow adorning the display with gorgeous eye-catching orange/red rose hips, indigo sloes still with their bloom each as big as marbles or gobstoppers and mouth-wateringly juicy, coal-black, swollen blackberries…
Not this year were carefully prepared, labelled jars of home-cooked chutneys and jams fresh from several family kitchens…
Not this year did the congregation sing the children’s favourite perennial ‘All things bright and beautiful’; a hymn learned in Sunday school, or the comforting ‘We plough the fields and scatter, the good seed on the land’ – sung to that homely German tune; rather like the inner warmth one got when singing ‘Silent Night’ at Christmas…
Not this year were children, bedecked in their ‘Sunday best’; shoes polished, scrubbed and pressed clothes, hair oiled and combed able to witness this mighty trove of plenty…
Not this year. For Harvest Festival was there a packed chapel or church thankful for arriving at the end of Summer, safe and still well. Not this year!
No, this year, with Covid-19 still rife in communities up and down our green and pleasant land. Our chapel and church was a special place, only partially filled with pre-booked, socially-distanced, face-covered congregation. No hymns to sing but still giving thanks for this new alternative; and now we are in a Covid-19 Lockdown 2.0.
This year’s harvest display was of jazzy tins of Italian tomatoes. Plastic bags of durum wheat pasta in many shapes and sizes. Cartons of long life milk, tinned meat, tinned vegetables, tinned rice pudding. Not to mention other similar non-perishables – all with suitable wipe-down packaging.
No freshly fallen apples or pears. No mellow fruitfulness. No perishables at all as this new harvest – bought principally at local supermarkets – was distributed en masse to Kibworth’s own local charity, ‘The Well’ for their food bank to help those in need throughout this community.
All we can do is be thankful for what we have and pray that you all ‘Stay safe and well’.
Remember tomorrow will be a new beginning. We live in hope.
Stephen Poyzer
Churches Together Christmas Card
