This blog comes from Stuart Adamson, who will be preaching at online church Sunday week, and is apparently preparing his sermon by imitating Francis of Assisi. I think this is a beautiful and refreshing piece.
I have a walk that I do when I need to clear my head and get the blood flowing. When I need to stretch my legs. I find in these strange days that I am noticing small details in nature more and more.
As I walk out my back door there is a large hedge of camellia with literally hundreds of buds. I watched last week as the first of the buds gained a slightly pink tinge at the tip. When I went for my walk today, I noticed that the single pink tip had given way to a full bloom and many other buds had suffered the same fate. And I was the beneficiary. I walk out my gate and down the street. There’s a house I walk past which has a tree with boughs overreaching the wall. I pass under the boughs as I walk along the footpath. In recent times when the wind has been blowing overnight, strange looking fruit that I recognised from my childhood could be found amongst the blades of grass at the base of the wall. I picked one up, I felt it’s hard green skin as the fruit it self nestled in the palm of my hand. I put it in my pocket and reflected on the Old Testament practice of gleaning, where farmers at harvest time had been directed by the Lord to not harvest at the edges of the fields so that the widows, the poor and the foreigners had something to eat.
I went on my way, walking past the horses in the field, and along Bunnerong Road, past the spot where some nights previously Judy and I had seen a large fox on the edge of the bushland. (There must be more than enough for him to eat.)When I got back home I walked into the kitchen and remembered the fruit in my back pocket. I took a knife and sliced the fruit in half and then with a spoon, I gouged out the honey coloured sweet flesh. As I tasted it it took me straight back to my childhood. We had a feijoa tree in our driveway when I was young, and, in season, I would pick them and eat them the same way I just had. Remembering. Forgetting. East and west. Gleaning. Care. Provision. Blessing. Beauty. Renewal. Thanks.
