I know it’s harvest time, even in the middle of a city centre, because people give me vegetables. So far this year I have enthusiastically accepted a bunch of homegrown kale and some lovingly tended runner beans, a handful of small plums and some big, round apples. Not to mention, as a Children, Schools and Families Chaplain, it’s the time of year when the song “cauliflowers fluffy” is perpetually lodged in my head.

When I visit schools, we focus on harvest as a time for thankfulness: an opportunity to give thanks to God for God’s glorious, bountiful creation and abundant provision. We share childlike awe and wonder at the colourful beauty in evidence on display when the classic giant marrow is proudly placed at the foot of the altar alongside the carrots and  tomatoes.
But there is a more troubling side to Creationtide, that causes us to reflect. When I told my three-year-old we would be choosing some tins to bring to church for the harvest service, because some people don’t have enough to eat, his blunt monosyllabic reply was difficult to answer:

“Why?”

Where do we begin to explain to young children the unjust systems, the environmental desecration and changing climate patterns, that result in food insecurity and the political instability that exacerbates rising living costs? I was not sure how to begin to answer my child’s question. But I am certain that thankfulness, and tending to creation in our little patches of soil on the windowsills of student flats, cluttered kitchen sinks or perhaps homes that feel lonelier than they used to, is an act of faith and indeed a type of defiant hope.