Harvest Thanksgiving: Shining lights, lifting weights

HARVEST FESTIVAL on SUNDAY 3rd OCTOBER 2016
The day dawned bright with plenty of sunshine as the congregation, in great numbers,  arrived at East Church bearing their harvest gifts.   The sun shone into the church, which had been beautifully decorated by the Flower Ladies.  Their imaginative arrangements were quite breathtaking.
In the opinion of the writer the church was truly in one of its best celebration modes and the enormous efforts of the Flower Team were immediately obvious.  It also appeared that the flowers chosen were just right for the occasion and the mix of colours and textures quite divine.  Every corner had a glorious display.  A local harvest stook had proud of place at the front of the church and reminded me of past days when every column of my church was surrounded by corn and barley stooks.
It was also a first for the church by the presentation of a Woolly Harvest Festival Display, the results of yet many more parish labours by

the ladies of the congregation and friends.   Knitting patterns had been distributed about one month earlier and a few brave volunteers tackled the difficulties of knitting a complete harvest display. This included the Costermonger with his market stall, and the entire range of everyday vegetables from giant marrows to sprouts and peas !  The knitters admitted that the task had been challenging and the knitting time was far exceeded by the sewing up time of intricate vegetables such as the cauliflower.  The display will remain for all to view for the next few weeks and a reminder might be issued to the children that the display is inedible !
The modern day festival produced many gifts of tinned food, packaged food as is the nature of Harvest Festivals today and the Woolly Presentation was a fine reminder of how things were in the past.  We will take the greatest care of this work of art and display it again on this occasion, maybe even with a few additions and a wife for the costermonger perhaps ?
Kids Kirk were given the project of combining some of the perishable food into small parcels in a challenge to members of the congregation, selected at random,  to produce a mouth-watering dish by the following Sunday.   More excitement will follow when these efforts are reviewed !
Finally, the hard working flower team, with their continuing energy divided the flower displays for distribution to the absent, incapacitated and sick members of the congregation who had missed an exceptional day.