On Sunday we celebratd Harvest Thanksgiving. It's an odd activity in the middle of a city. Food of course is still central to our lives, and looking around our building we are never in any danger of forgetting that. Within the building, much of what we do centres on eating together, and on the preparation and clearing up that enable that. And outside, the number of places where it is possible to buy something to eat and drink seems to increase weekly (and with the new buildings at Central St Giles there are going to be even more possibilities). But harvest time - the recongnition of the turning of the seasons, the hands on awareness of the growth and ripening of the food which is crucial to our survival - for many of us, the immediate connection to that is not an everyday reality.
Perhaps it is precisely for that reason that celebrating harvest is important. Just because we do not see the fields ripening, watch - or even take part - in the cutting and storing of the crops, enter into the worry about the impact of weather or the damage done by parasites. Cut off as we are from the realities of what our food is, where it comes from, its giveness rather than our ability to control it, we need a regular occasion to be reminded to say thank you, to reflect on the complexity of creation, on the interconnectedness of the world, and our dependence on it. This year, Megabytes led us in reflection on the place and the plight of the bee, and helped us to think about, to pray about, and to be open to what we might do about the risks that we all face in an interconnected creation, when what looks like one small part is in danger.
We could take the thinking about this further. Just as we need harvest thanksgiving to keep us in touch with what we all too easily forget in our particular way of life, so we need the regular times of worship and reflection that keep us open to the life of faith, the love of God which we can all too easily forget because it is not the normal context in which we move. Our lives are interconnected with the lives of the bees. Our lives are interconnected with the life of God and so with each other. But we need to take time to know that, and to let what it means settle in us so that we can live it out.
So, we thank God for the provision for living. And we ask God for the responsibility to live well.