Daily Worship

The Worked Land

Andy Campbell October 11, 2016 0 0

Deuteronomy 8

6 Observe the commands of the Lord your God, walking in obedience to him and revering him. 7 For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land – a land with brooks, streams, and deep springs gushing out into the valleys and hills; 8 a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig-trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; 9 a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills.

Oh that our Land might be as productive as the description of Canaan by the authors of Deuteronomy !    In the 18th Century our Land was extensively surveyed, and as well as fertile ground, much of it was identified as mountain, moorland and bog.  At the same time our ancestors were ‘cleared’ in the name of ‘improvement’  and found themselves forced to the margins to win a living from the poorest land and the seashore.  Today most of us have lost touch with the practicalities of our food production.  Supermarkets provide out-of-season fruit and veg from around the world, while meat, poultry and eggs are sealed in plastic packaging.

 

How often Lord I’ve trailed round the supermarket, muttering about the cost of everything, aggravated by shortage of time or the children playing up.

Sometimes I look at the packs and see that the apples came from New Zealand  or the beans from Kenya, 

but I didn’t notice the beef and lamb growing in the roadside fields as I journeyed to the shop.

Open my eyes to the farming work that goes on around me – 

the tractor with a queue of traffic on the road, is hauling my potatoes and carrots.  

The mud it leaves on the road is the very stuff of living growth.

Remind me that while I’m preoccupied with my daily routine, 

someone is taking cattle to market, showing his prize bull, 

looking for a ram to produce fat lambs for chops.

I pray for the men and women alone in a tractor cab, in the rain, day in, day out.

Ploughing, sowing, reaping.   Putting in the work, hoping it will pay the bills.

Remind me Lord, that food is fuel  - nourishment for minds –  the young at school,

the old and infirm.  Help me to think about what I eat and drink, or give my family 

for our own health and well-being.

Food for thought.

Amen