Ministry Team Letter for the Month

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Dear Friends,

 

Brambles!

 

One of the places that I find true fulness of life, is in the garden. I love growing things; particularly food. At the moment, the tomatoes are beginning to ripen in my greenhouse, the plum tree is laden with fruit, and the sweetcorn is looking extremely hopeful.

 

Other things though are coming with their challenges. The cucumbers in the greenhouse have for no apparent reason done that prima donna act that cucumbers do so well and are currently turning yellow and doing their best to die. The potatoes are disappearing underneath a beautiful deluge of bind weed, and almost everywhere I look, there seems to be a bramble! Now I have to admit that brambles have their upside. Despite the fact that it is only July there are already edible purple berries waiting to be picked so that I can make jam, sprinkle fresh berries on my cereal, and put some in the freezer to later in the season be united with apples under a toping of golden crumble.

 

Brambles also have their down side. Where they arch down to ground level they weave their way almost unseen through long grass to snag the unwary passer by; and the young stems hide in amongst other weeds,

prickling the unprotected fingers of the gardener. And one particularly fine one is making a bridge all the way from the garden wall to the top of the greenhouse.

 

Not long ago an email landed in my inbox that made me think about brambles in a rather different way. This came from Robin Harford - do look him up - he writes beautifully about a mixture of foraging, plant lore and nature spirituality. 

 

He says this …

 

“Bramble doesn’t stand apart from its world, claiming territory and defending boundaries. It participates …. Canes arch and touch the earth, creating new root points, expanding not through conquest but through relationships … Every curve, lean, thorn, and flower speaks to connection rather than independence.”

 

As I read this, I began to wonder what we as Christian community might learn from the bramble. How often - in church - in life - do we claim our territory; want to do it our way or by ourselves. Turning down the offer of help that would create connection because we like independence, when actually God told us right from the start that we weren’t meant to be alone, we were meant to be inter-dependent, community creators, people who share the love of God through connection, growing and seeing others grow where the gospel touches and puts down new roots. 

 

When I went to the greenhouse this evening - I paused to spent a moment connecting with the big bramble by the wall - who would have thought that a bramble had so much to say!

 

Have a good summer,

 

Hilary

 

The Revd Hilary Bond, Pioneer Priest and Schools Worker