It is one year since I began writing this column on Mothering Sunday last year and we are still in crisis.

The Christian Gospel has always included a message of recreation, whether that means the new life of Baptism as indicated in Galations chapter 6 verse 15 (“a new creation is everything”) or a new created order, as described in Revelation 21 verse 5: “Behold I make all things new.”

As we come out of this Covid crisis we need men and women of vision, not only to get back to normal but to make a new normal. To get to this new normal we need to love God, love one another and love the soil, so as to realize a re-creation of the life that God has envisioned for us. Yes, we need to get back to many things as they were, but also to go beyond that and mend what is broken.

Our part of the world is particularly suited to re-create our lives, by working with the soil, sowing seeds, caring for livestock and communal harvesting and communal meals. We nourish both body and soul. This is one reason why Holy Communion is so meaningful. They say that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach! Local efforts such as the River and Food Festival play a large part in connecting us to the soil as do Allotments. God has been referred to as the “Ground of our being.” One could read this in many ways. Certainly, Nature has played a huge role in sustaining the health of the Nation during this pandemic. Earlier in my life I grew potatoes in seaweed and had a strawberry patch and an allotment. Now, I rely on Tesco where some of the food has a large carbon footprint.

As the world suffers in the midst of disease and conflict we also suffer. St Paul reminds us that our hardships are only an echo of the groaning that Creation experiences as it waits for redemption, for re-Creation. As we groan along with creation, our hope and goal is that God will transform us and the world into a new creation. There is a wonderful glimpse of this in the book of Revelation chapter 21 verses 1 to 7. “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth.”

Hymns:

All that kills abundant living,

let it from the earth be banned;

pride of status, race or schooling,

dogmas that obscure your plan.

In our common quest for justice

may we hallow life’s brief span.

You, creator – God have written

your great name on human kind;

for our growing in your likeness

bring the life of Christ to mind;

that by our response and service

earth its destiny may find.

(Text: Fred Kaan. B. 1929)

Ysbryd Duw, a fu’n ymsymud

dros ddyfnderau’r tryblith mawr

nes dwyn bywyd a phrydferthwch

allan i oleuni’r wawr,

dros y byd a’i dryblith heddiw

chwyth drachefn O anadl Iôr,

ness bod heddwch fel yr afon

a chyfiawnder fel y môr

(Cynan, 1895 – 1970)

Prayers:

God our Creator, as individuals and groups, may we come together in solidarity to think and act for the future, keeping sincere eyes on Christ. As you work inside of us and in Creation, may we be alert to the moving of the Holy Spirit, in order to live in ways to sustain life in the future. Amen.

Dduw ein Crëwr, fel unigolion a chylchoedd, boed inni ddod at ein

gilydd mewn solidariaeth i feddwl a gweithredu yn enw’r dyfodol,

gan gadw llygaid diffuant ar Grist. Wrth iti weithio ynom ni ac yn

y Greadigaeth, boed i ni fod yn effro i symudiadau’r Ysbryd Glân,

er mwyn i ni fyw mewn ffyrdd fydd yn cynnal bywyd yn y dyfodol. Amen.

(Paraphrased from an article “Questioning the Culture of Gluttony,” written by the Reverend Dr Toshihiro Takami in 1987, Taken from Eudoo Journal Vol 3, 2019, Asian Rural Institute, Nasushiobara, Japan.)