Always Hope

We celebrated Harvest tonight at Old Kea, our little church in the valley.  It's one of those places where Harvest still carries its traditional meaning, with a very local congregation and a fair few agricultural types there.  Listening to an excellent home-grown sermon from our very own churchwarden, I was struck again by the potency of Harvest to connect with people's spirituality at a deep-down level.  It just seems to mean something to people, even those who don't necessarily darken the doors very often. I know some of my fellow clergy, jaundiced by singing songs about cabbages green at too many school assemblies, don't care for Harvest too much.  If I was in an urban parish, I might feel the same.  But we shouldn't rush to spurn something which helps us to speak when people want to listen. I wonder what the new equivalent of Harvest festival might be? What would capture the hearts and minds of the emerging generations of Britons, and prompt them to give...

A little blog-spat has broken out among the clergy bloggers over Harvest Festivals. The Church Mouse (who may or may not be a Reverend Mouse) started it , and now Thurible has weighed in on his side. What I'm really interested in are the comments on these posts, revealing a split between vicars who think Harvest is A Good Thing, and those who think of it in the same league as having a tooth drilled. This blog is firmly pro-Harvest. And to be honest, I'm feeling a little unsympathetic to some of the points of view that my fellow clergy are putting forward. Vicars who don't get Harvest? Next they'll be saying they don't like funerals (hang on a minute...) Anyway, maybe I've just been following the Conservative Party Conference too closely, but Always Hope wants to dish out some no-nonsense advice to these Harvest refuseniks. There seem to be several possible reasons for not liking Harvest: 1. "I'm not into country things". Yes, well, since you...