Mucky boots

Monday saw (in theory) the start of my sabbatical. Part of which will include a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. I fly to Porto and walk from there to the alleged burial site of St James some 150 miles to the north.

As part of my preparation I have been doing more walking than usual. Yesterday (Tuesday) I walked to Broadwas Church for their morning communion service. In days gone, nobody would have thought twice about walking in with mucky boots, but nowadays a carpet covers the floor & so I took my boots off as I went in. There is, after all, a precedent for taking shoes off on holy ground.

The reading for the service was Psalm 139 " Oh Lord, you've searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise... you are familiar with all my ways..."
That was good news as whilst I had checked out the footpaths on a map before walking down to Broadwas there were bits that were unfamiliar that I did n't know. There will be more unfamiliar bits between Porto and Santiago, so the psalm is rather reassuring.

Thinking inside the box

This week I was leading a harvest assembly for a primary school. There was, I told them, something very special in a box I had brought.
The children could tell that it was quite heavy and rattled when shaken. It would, I told them, if you did the right things with it, produce

• a woolly jumper,
• a drink of orange juice
• a story book
• an apple
• a cuddly sheep

Could they guess what was in the box?

They came up with

• credit cards - but they don't produce anything but debt
• money - but that doesn't produce anything, it just enables people to buy what others have produced
  
• love - a pretty good guess at many school assemblies but that's not heavy or rattles when you shake it
• a statue of Jesus - Well if the answer isn't "love" then usually it's "Jesus" but not today!!!

Have you worked out what was in the box yet???

It was soil, dirt, earth, compost. Not something we usually value but the basis for supplying most of our needs. In the Genesis 2 account of God creating man, He makes Adam from the Adamah, Compo from the compost, and tells Compo to serve and keep the earth from which he is created.

That "serving and keeping" of the earth is generally done for us by farmers.