I sat yesterday evening, after evening service, sharing a picnic with my wife by the Trent in Fiskerton. It was the coolest part of a very warm day, and the still clear sky was paling as the sun, sinking slowly to its rest filled it with golden light as it. A combine was harvesting the crop from the large field on the other bank, making the most of the light to bring in the drying grain, with the tractor and trailer coming to offload its precious cargo alongside, the harvester barely stopping in its tracks. A reassuring, and hopefully profitable, end to the season’s work.
New beginnings
Probably in part because I have spent all my life working on the academic year calendar, both in education and in The Methodist Church, this has always been my “new beginnings” time of year. I even get a new academic year diary to plan my way through clean pages, hating the first cancellation or error that spoils the neatly written appointments of the new year. Just as all the harvests are reaching their climax and the natural world is preparing to hunker down against the cold, we start our cycle of meetings and activities all over again. Sometimes it feels quite bizarre and out of kilter.
Melancholy and hope
I find September a mixture of melancholy and hope, reminding me always of fresh exercise books, with the errors and messiness of past tasks swept away. In the film ‘You’ve Got Mail’, Tom Hank’s character muses about the sights and scents of New York in the Fall and says “It makes me want to rush out and buy school supplies”, adding, in his email to Meg Ryan’s character, “If I could, I would send you a bouquet of sharpened pencils!” It always fills me with a sense of wistful hope for better things.
Blessing and wishes
I cannot, at this turn of the year, send you bouquets of sharpened pencils either, but I can send you my best wishes and blessings for all that you will attempt to do and be, along with my prayers that you will know God’s love and strength, his wisdom and guidance, his companionship and compassion in all your circumstances.
Life may have many challenges for us in the coming year, as well as joys and successes. Whatever may come, let’s be encouraged by John Wesley’s experience, summed up in his statement, “Best of all, God is with us!”
Grace and peace,
Dave Bonny
