Reflection #112 (21st September 2025 at Essex Church / Kensington Unitarians)
It’s good for us to set aside time once a year for a special service like this – a service of thanksgiving – and by timing it to coincide with the traditional harvest festivals (around the time of the autumn equinox) we can situate ourselves in a long line of generations who came before us and who held similar celebrations. In centuries past, I expect people would have been rather more keenly aware of the precarity of the harvest, particularly the vagaries of weather and disease, and all the factors that had to align for them and their families to get enough to eat. So it was natural to get to September and say ‘the harvest is in, thank God, and it will see us through winter.’
But what about us, now, in the 21st century? Arguably it’s even more important for us to keep up this annual autumn tradition in a time when many of us (especially city-dwellers) are somewhat alienated from the actual means of food production. Marking the harvest festival is, at its best, a way of reconnecting with the earth, acknowledging our ultimate dependence on it, and indeed our interdependence with all the people who grow and pick and pack and sell our food. In recent years we’ve seen headlines about ‘supply chain issues’ and perhaps become more aware of how geopolitical events and climate change are impacting access to food. And I suspect most of us are all too aware of how economic inequality means the harvest is not being fairly distributed – collectively, we have enough food – but many still go hungry.
So harvest is a double-edged festival, I think. It is, primarily, a celebration – it’s about connecting with the very goodness of existence and some of life’s simple pleasures – but it also insists that we remember those who are not enjoying life’s bounty (and implicitly, calls on us to do something about it, share whatever good fortune we have).
And we need to be remembering this more than once a year! Which is why I wanted to share that first reading, on ‘Learning to Say Grace’, from Norman Wirzba. I don’t know if any of us gathered here today make a practice of saying grace at mealtimes? It’s not something I grew up doing so it’s not something that comes naturally to me. But I’m wondering if it’s something I might take up. I rather like the idea of a bite-sized spiritual practice (pun intended!) – something that could be built into the rhythm of my days – just to pause for a minute at breakfast, lunch, and dinner and give thanks. I reckon it would probably do us all good to have a tiny ritual we can do three times a day, to reconnect with a sense of gratitude, and refocus on all that is good in our lives.
And I do think we should go further than giving thanks for our food, important as that is. That’s why our service title today has two parts: ‘Bringing in the Harvest – Taking in the Good’. As well as the literal harvest of veg, fruit, grain, and all the rest, there’s also a much broader metaphorical harvest to take into account, all the other blessings of life.
The human world, right now, is a mess. In so many ways. It is easy to fall into despair about it all (I wouldn’t blame you if you did). It is important to witness what’s going on and to resist evil. But it is also important that we do not focus exclusively on the horrors. We need to be lifted up, in order to summon the strength to go on, stand up for what’s right, do good, speak truth, create beauty, work for justice and peace. To paraphrase the old saying of Teresa of Avila, one of my favourites: to be the hands of God in this world.
Despite all the horrors, we are still here, for now, and it’s a remarkable miracle that we popped into existence in the first place, we got a shot at this one wild and precious life. Despite everything, here we are, and we have the chance to enjoy a cup of tea and a slice of cake (or a beetroot, or a plum, or any of the other harvest goodies on our table). So let’s make sure we really enjoy it – savour it, relish it – be a bit more mindful of it.
A fragment of a prayer-poem from M Barclay of the enfleshed collective came to me. They wrote this in April 2020 when we were all caught in pandemic-shock: ‘Now is not a time for rushing past joy. Do not move too quickly from any good thing: not laughter nor a sight of beauty, not a taste, a feeling, a companion, or a truth. These are gifts, not to be wasted. Be generous in sharing. Linger and give thanks. Be excessive in awe. Just, do not hurry through them as if they are not precious in this season of grief.’
I think that sentiment will serve us just as well in this current season of turbulence. As Rick Hanson said, our brains are Teflon for good experiences and Velcro for bad, it’s just how we’re wired by default. So, as a corrective, we need to actively practice ‘taking in the good’. Now is not a time for rushing past joy. Notice when good things happen, and imagine those positive experiences sinking into you, so you can carry them onward – just like you would with any other nourishment you take in – internalise them just as you would take the molecules from the food you eat into your cells, muscles, bones. Maybe someone has said a kind, encouraging affirming word to you. Really take it in. Maybe you have heard beautiful music, seen wonderful art or architecture, read an incredible book. Maybe you have spent time in an astonishing landscape or garden.
Immerse yourself in all this goodness that still surrounds us, despite everything. See if you can fill in your own A-Z of gratitude (as an aside: that’s a great exercise to do if you’re struggling to get to sleep at night). And also, remember your own place in the interdependent web that makes all this goodness possible. You may also be the person who says the kind, encouraging, affirming word to another; who creates the music, makes the work of art, writes the book; who campaigns for the protection of nature, tends to the garden, makes the tea, bakes the cake, grows the beetroot or the plum. The ways in which we can – and already do – contribute to life’s harvest are endless.
I want to close with a prayer for the harvest by my friend Laura Dobson.
Spirit of Life, Ground of Our Being, at this harvest-time,
we give thanks for the gifts of nature, freely given.
For the abundance and beauty of this earth, we give thanks.
For fertile soils, ripening crops and fruiting hedgerows, we give thanks.
For bracing breezes and misty mornings, we give thanks.
For cool evenings and spectacular sunsets, we give thanks.
For dew glistening on spiders’ webs, we give thanks.
For the sumptuous scent of fallen leaves on damp earth, we give thanks.
For the circling seasons, the dance of light and dark, we give thanks.
For all the gifts of nature, freely given, we give thanks.
For the fruits of love and the gifts of friendship we harvest
here in our beloved community, we give thanks.
For the joys of sharing and growing
and flourishing together, we give thanks.
For the promise of harvest that lies in the seed, the huge oak tree in the tiny acorn, the sweet apple in the bitter pip, we give thanks.
For all the promise, potentiality and possibilities of our lives, we give thanks. Amen.
Reflection by Jane Blackall