title="Baldons Parish Council in Oxfordshire">

From the Vicar Oct 2015

FROM THE VICAR, REVD PAUL CAWTHORNE

 

As summer turns to a reluctant autumn, there is a sense of sadness at the shortening days and need to reach for the jumpers.  Its been a strange summer with early baking hot weather then more variable weather once the schools broke up.   The Feast seems a happy memory but now from a distance and paddling in the warm river Thames seems from a different season.

 

The fields are all harvested and some already starting to be resown. It seems to have been a good harvest, so we can hope for bread through the coming winter at a reasonable price after a good grain harvest and give thanks to our farmers for all their hard work amid the unpredictable weather. 

 

When I lived and worked in Georgia in the former Soviet Union during the war in the Caucasus, it was at a very difficult time when there was only a couple of hours electricity a day through the winter and there were riots as the bread supplies throughout the country ran low.  It really brought home to me how much we take for granted and the deep truth of Jesus' prayer: 'Give us this day our daily bread'. 

 

We need the many blessings of that prayer to guide us through life in its different unpredictable seasons, from simply being reminded not to forget 'Our Father in heaven' to our constant need to ask 'forgive us our sins' to the glimpses of God's 'splendour and majesty' come down to earth for us to perceive, which we can see in the beauty of an autumn river valley sunset or in the innocent smile of a baby's face. 

 

There is so much to give thanks to God for, please do feel free to join in the thanksgiving of this season at our harvest celebrations at Toot Baldon church on Sunday October 11th starting at 5pm, followed by refreshments.

 

As you drive past a field in its autumn glory, maybe just pause a short while to offer thanks too for all the blessings of the beauty around us.

 

Best wishes,

Paul