Harvest, Mystery of the Dark

A favourite season with tractors and trailers on the fields working up clouds of dust, rolling out bales of hay, harvesting sugar beets, wheat and whatever else and, blanketing out behind the big machines, crows and pigeons, also enjoying overflow of the harvest.

Seemingly from nowhere there are produce and we pick and pickup and dig out all kinds of edibles. We enjoy fresh from the land and share.

The trained eye of the farmer see potential when it is just soil, leaves, minute grains in the hand or sticks on the land. When nothing happens, something is happening they will tell you. They get all excited and gear up.

God, how does this wonder, this mystery from the beginning of time happen that we so get use to that we neither notice nor appreciate? In darkness, underground, unnoticeable, something develops.

We are learning to see what is and beyond, like the farmer.

Maybe this month was the ’see what is beyond’ time for us. We did not see much more than bad nights partly because of a heatwave; dust and dead grass because of water scarcity; Kirsty wetting her bed almost every night resulting in loads of laundry; saying ‘no’ in order to hopefully be able to say ‘yes’ later; no holiday in the holiday month; Wim returning midway in a two week teaching time from France to not have Kirsty stay home full time for two weeks in case of quarantine.

In our own spirits we wait, dig deep for water, reach for the sun and are honest about our shame struggles. I AM finds us in that shameful dark place of I cannot do it one more time and I am not a good parent because of grumbling. The seed must die for the harvest of peace to come deep within, one tiny moment by tiny moment – no miraculous bright-lights-loud-music fanfare, but only deep, quiet victory – peace. A war is won. Harvest has arrived.

Birds feed in the garden from last year’s seeds. We pick produce from our friends’ garden while they are on holiday. We share with our neighbour who cooks up a meal that would outdo the best chef in town. We walk the forest, breathe, and ponder.

We are grateful for the farmers for their hard labour and love for the land always waiting for the rain and soil to yield in abundance.

We think of all the thousands of farmers (also our farming family and friends) in South Africa who experience terrible acts of violence and are subject to horrific murders. Seemingly, extraordinarily little gets done to stop this. So, we stand with them in peaceful protest to stop the killing because ‘farmers’ lives matter’.

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