Plough the Furrow, Sow the Seed, Reap the Harvest

(For my title this week I'm indebted to author Margaret Dickinson ... these three form an excellent trilogy.)

It's long baffled me why churches celebrate their harvest festivals in early October ... or at best late September.  My childhood recollections, supported by what I've seen driving through the countryside in more recent years, tell me that harvest begins in mid-July and is over by mid-August in most places.  Equally recent social history research, however, suggests that, at the time when harvest festivals were being developed, harvest was a much more labour-intensive and long-drawn-out affair than it is today.

However, quite apart from the field of agriculture, this is a time for celebrating the reaping of other harvests sown earlier in the year. Schools are on the brink of breaking up for that long summer break; quite recently we saw pretty girls parading their finery in readiness for prom nights - what used to be 'end of school parties' have moved up a league - and, higher still in the academic world, students galore have been celebrating the end of several years of study as they collect their degrees from universities up and down the country.

Many are looking forward to a well-earned break from routine in the form of an annual holiday.  I can remember my mother saving the shillings all through the year in order to pay for a week by the seaside.  By my early teens, it might have been boring for me, following what was a pre-set pattern year after year, but for her it was the one week in the year when she didn't have to prepare meals day after day, didn't have to think about running the home and all the other things that our pre-equality world demanded of a housewife.  It made all the scrimping and saving worthwhile.

Following the same pattern that I grew up with, I'm just embarking on a week away, but it won't be the oh, so familiar, Yarmouth again.  Instead there will be a different view each day and, although I shall be staying not far from the coast, excursions are planned to a variety of seaside resorts and inland tourist attractions as well.

This time of year is very much a crossroads for our emotions.  The other evening I went to a pre-season football match; it was good entertainment and 'my' team won.  A few years ago, I joined what was the largest football crowd of my watching career when I watched a non-league team playing League 4 Chesterfield in front of 1,200-plus.  It's the time for teams to test their mettle against bigger sides in readiness for the new season ... and the start of the 2018 FA Cup competition is only weeks away!

My week has seen the completion of more foundations for the future.  For over a year now, I have been arguing the case for the church to offer first aid training to key volunteers.  Once approval was given a few months ago, the effort moved to organising a training day.  This week, in a sudden burst, came the final selection of a date when all those involved can be available and the booking and confirmation of the course itself.

Also in our church, as in countless others, a small handful of parents, grandparents and other willing helpers are bringing to a conclusion their preparations for a Holiday Club event for the children of the church and the wider community.  Quite apart from any spiritual content, it will be a time of craft work, singing, games, and fun of all kinds, and is very popular every year.  To the parents of those children it will form part of a far larger plan, that of keeping the little darlings occupied with one activity after another during the long school holiday.

For some parents, this will be more of a challenge than for others.  Some children are quite adept at keeping themselves amused but - although I fully expect to be challenged on this - these are, I believe, more in the minority these days than, say, when I was a child in the middle of the last century. While many more activities are available for children in today's world, a lot of these need parental participation, or at least transport to get to them, so the parents become drawn into the demands of the school holidays in a way that was not the case in past ages.  As one commentator put  it, 'children no longer learn how to deal with boredom; they are spared from it by the plethora that surrounds them.'

And of course, a holiday gives the opportunity to plan ahead.  With the mind freed from past commitments now completed, or the routines that so often command the same energies, thought can be given to new projects to which attention can directed upon our return.  Whether the body is lazing on a sun-drenched beach, sheltering from rain-drenched gardens, or walking on dusty roads and pathways, the mind can be having its own adventure ... and who knows what delights might be in store for the unsuspecting holidaymaker upon his return to normality!

So, dear reader, whether you are celebrating a crop newly harvested, watching the growth of a crop recently sown, or ploughing the ground for a crop yet to come, do have a profitable and productive holiday when it comes.