REAPING THE HARVEST

One more sleep til hubby gets home and my attention has turned to his welcome home meal. Being a vegetarian myself,the best he can hope for is a fatted enchilada,but I dont anticipate any complaints. The girls too are very excited to see him and Poppy was keen to make something for Daddy aswell. Weve long been admiring the blackberry patch on the walk to Paignton Zoo,typically we grab and run,but dessert in mind,we decided this morning to pluck in earnest...

and what a heist we managed! In fact I doubt there are any blackberries left-at least not any under 6' high! I really surprised myself with my tenacity and was amazed that noone beeped the strange woman scalling the banks of the Totnes Road. How liberating to claim our share of Gods bounty...and how exciting to make our very first flan!

 

Back at the ranch we welcomed our friends Miriam,Eli & Thea round to play. Miriam and I had a lovely Latte and a Pecan Danish. We talked a little about conformity,particularly in relation to children starting school and being exposed to ' the system'. I remembered how depressed I was to register my childrens' births,how desperately I wanted to bundle them up and run away and live in a caravan away from rules and regulations. It seemed so gut-wrenchingly poinant that the beautiful names we had given them would one day be branded on household bills or worse. We thought about our own inate rebellion and how much of it could be used by God.

It will come as no surprise that I have had my run ins with authority, perhaps all eldest children do. But I have been surprised to find that submission to God is not nearly as hard as submission to man. There has been no force in my Christian journey,no cynicism for my creator. Being a part of Christianity on the other hand is another matter and I rebel continuously against the culture of the church. I have had to ask myself why? Why,when I have the Christian 'ideal' (husband,kids,chance to stay home) do I care so much for those who do not? I am so insensed by homophobia within the church that it has become a burden to me and the only way I can understand it is to think that God wants to use my independent spirit to challenge those who have do harm to the Gay community.

 

I recently read an article by Anne Rice,the author of Interview with a Vampire,who publically disowned what she called 'quarellsome christianity'. On her facebook fan page she said this “For ten ...years, I've tried, I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.” Rice remains devoted to Christ but said she would longer be associated with Christians who are 'anti-gay, anti-feminist, anti-artificial birth control, anti-Democrat, anti-secular humanism, anti-science, and anti-life in the name of Christ'. Powerful stuff indeed!

 I wholeheartedly feel Rice's pain but what a pity she was not able to surround herself with like minded people. (I often joke that Im off to join the Lesbian Quakers when church gets too self righteous for comfort) Luckily for us in the UK,we are spared a lot of the hideous fundamentalism and conservatism that so depressed Rice. There will always be those who put legalism ahead of the gospel,but in the main,it is possible to be both liberal and Christian. The Bible in its deliberate obscurity,demands that we all study and contemplate and measure what we hear from other Christians against what we know of Gods nature and the example of Jesus in the Gospels. And here I will stop,before my inner rebel takes hold!


Instead I will close with the words of my own baptism- so,so encouraging when I feel,as I often do,that Im on my own in a great sea of injustice:

" Let us not grow weary in well-doing,for if we do not give up,in time we shall reap the harvest" (Galatians 6:9)