From Summer’s Heat to Harvest Time
Posted on: September 19, 2013
- In: Everyday Life | Faith | Family
- Comments Off on From Summer’s Heat to Harvest Time
In the 1980s, my family moved across the country to a house in the country where the garden overflowed with pumpkins and squash, and we had to find ways to make use of the unexpected bounty. (We were drowning in zucchini, for one thing.) Maybe that’s why I enjoy the fresh apples, squash and root vegetables in the fall.
My son about to enjoy a freshly picked apple back in fall 2011
While cooking for picky eaters is challenging year-round, fall produce invites me to make slow-cooked comfort foods and apple pies, especially since we now have a mini pie baker—a big help to people like me who aren’t the best at turning out pretty pastry.
The best part of all this is the time we spend eating meals together. A contrast with summertime, when no one wants to cook and meals tend to be eaten in the cool basement family room, where the TV awaits.
In the fall, we can sit in the dinette, enjoy our food and talk about the challenges and high points of the day. (In all honesty, I do most of the talking while everyone else eats.)
It seems that something similar happens to parishes in the summer.
When it’s hot, the service tends to be shorter. Attendance falls in the summer, with parishioners on holiday or at cottages. And if the church relies on fans for cooling, parishioners hurry out as soon as the service ends rather than socialize.
Then September arrives. We come together in greater numbers as a community to spend time worshipping and praising God and sharing a meal, the Eucharist. So we should, since we’re meant to live out our faith together, just as the book of Acts tells us the early church did. More opportunities arise to use our gifts to serve others within our faith community and beyond.
We’re blessed to spend time once again with our family and our “church family” and to have the chance to support, encourage and build up one another and use that “fresh start” feeling of September to bear good fruit for God.
On a sad note, I pray that God would heal those who were injured and grant his rest to those who were killed in yesterday’s bus/train collision in Ottawa and that he would comfort the families, friends and colleagues of the victims and survivors.
A Catholic Convert in Ottawa 