Rectory Ramblings…

“…they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more; but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees…”                                                        (Micah 4:3-4)
 
I hope you didn’t blink for too long during early June. if you did you will have missed it – summer that is. Or so it may seem. There was that one couple of  hot weeks. Since then it doesn’t seem to have stopped raining for more than a few days in a row, and finding time when the lawn is dry enough to cut has sometimes been a challenge. While it hasn’t really been cold it hasn’t really been sunny either. But let’s be honest, finding the right time to mow the lawn is a first world problem. We love complaining about our “four seasons in one day” British weather but the truth is we are very lucky. Our weather is varied but rarely extreme and, in spite of the wet summer, I still see combine harvesters gathering the crops from our fields. 
 
These verses from Micah and Habakkuk are among my favourite bible verses, because they remind me of a lot of things I occasionally need to be reminded of. We live in a nation that has been at peace for many years, but the headlines from Eastern Europe and some other parts of the world remind me that although we have beaten some of our swords into ploughshares, we still have a long way to go. We might complain about our weather, but at least we are not literally burning, as some parts of Southern Europe and Central America have been. We live in a land of plenty, and there is no excuse for people to go hungry in twenty-first century Britain, but people still do. 
 
From a global perspective, most people reading these words will be healthier than average, wealthier than average, better educated, better fed and better clothed than average. Even though I may suffer the occasional misfortune or setback, and the vine turn out to be empty or the olive tree fail to produce fruit, I am still far better off than the millions in our world who wake every day with only the prospect of another day of hunger or pain. So we should remember to thank the God of our salvation for our good fortune and his many blessings. And we must continue to do we can in beating swords into ploughshares in our individual quests to make the world a better and more peaceful place for all to live in. 
 
“Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines;
though the produce of the olive fails, and the fields yield no food;
… yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation.” (Habakkuk 3:17-18)                                                                           Revd Eddie