Inspired by the compassion of children

Sunday 2nd August, 2020

I was hugely cheered by two young boys, they looked about 5 or 6 years old, in a suburb of London selling home made lemonade to raise money for the suffering in Yemen. They had seen that children of their age were without food, water, shelter, medicines or homes. They raised £37,000. Wonderful yet one wants to scream and say why cannot the world come to peace and concord and share its resources? "We don't, we won't, that is not how it works" a friend told me! Yet an iota of goodness like yeast in bread raises us all up to better lives and thoughts and acts.

Also a photograph arrived on my email site. A photograph of three large courgettes, a basket of gooseberries and a bag of apples. All of them had been found by a friend in the skip outside her allotment. My first thought was Yemen. Then I wondered why we waste so much. Then I told myself to concentrate on what I can do, on the matter before me and let the salvation of the world be just part of my purlieu, part of all of us together.

I am so privileged.

I pottered in to the garden. A rabbit had been spotted grazing near my small patch of vegetables. It must have been the eater of my runner bean plants! It obviously does not like rhubarb or courgette or squash! I cheered myself by counting seven courgettes and many squash.

A friend with a salad growing area on her terrace had noticed her salad leaves being devoured. Her daughter had noted eggs on the side of the patch, eggs from some sort of butterfly and resulting in caterpillars. Her Mother had started to replace the salad and burrowing in to the compost had found many large inflated caterpillars. She collected them and put them in a jar. I then took them to re bury them. I think we need butterflies and I am not good at squashing, killing anything. So on my stroll yesterday I buried them about half a mile away and prayed to St Francis in hope and apology.

Slugs seem to have gotten to my indoor succulents. Mosquitoes are in abundance. The blackbirds have decimated the cherries. Are we in a war? How do we learn to be symbiotic, to share. I would love to get the rabbits together and do a deal!! It is a global dilemma.

My allotment friend has sent me a recipe for bannocks. She made some the other day and they were delicious. Flour, bran, yogurt are needed. I know that to have high yields of corn and of milk farmers have to take precautions against pests. Insecticides, fertilisers and so on are used....a global dilemma again as we look to our decaying environments and soils.

I will do what I can but I am not the saviour of the world. I have returned to Abbot Chapman's comment: " My habitual feeling is that the world is so extremely odd, and everything in it so surprising. Why should there be green grass and liquid water..? "

It is as it is, work with not against when one can. Till and nurture do not abuse the soil, the sea, the air. When one sees hunger and need try to help, be like the little children who make lemonade and sell it for their same aged unknown friends in Yemen. We share this planet and all together make it the beautiful place it is.

It is hard to know how....but never give up. The readings this morning were lovely. Isaiah giving hope in dark days, St Paul telling us nothing will separate us from the love of God.