Safely Gathered In (October 2015 Thought for the month)

October 25, 2015

in Monthly comment

I haven’t come across the amusing sayings of professional baseball player Yogi Berra until his death was announced last month. Some of his quotations:

“When you come to a fork in the road and take it”
“If you don’t know where you’re going you’ll wind up somewhere else.
“Nobody goes there anymore it’s too crowded”
“If the fans don’t come out to the ballpark, you can’t stop them”
“And this one it’s like déjà vu all over again!”

And here we are once again at harvest time, time to celebrate and to give thanks for yet another confirmation of his promise made after the flood:

“As long as the earth endures,
seed time and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night
will never cease.”

Yes, you could say it’s like déjà vu all over again!

Some of us have seen many harvests, and many harvest displays, here or elsewhere. But it’s interesting how the make up of the display has somewhat changed, we used to display much fresh fruit and veg, which in my youth we used to donate to what was called the almshouses. In more recent years we have tended to bring non-perishable food -tins and packets etc. and used to send them to our Grace Baptist Church in Clapham for distribution .

Brightening home city mission with the food bank, not just a typist but threat the year. It was such an interesting evening we had last month when Julian had a of the BH CM gave us an insight into the work of the mission and the desperately needy people they minister to in various ways. They so much appreciate the contributions. Thank you if you’ve been able to contribute to a display today.

Various psychological debates have taken place about what “déjà vu” really is; I heard such a debate on the radio yesterday. The Wikipedia description tells us it’s from French, literally “already seen” is synonymous of having the strong sensation that an event or experience currently being experienced , has already been experienced in the past, whether it is actually happened or not.

There are many in society who find themselves homeless and without hope- for them it is often a déjà vu situation- they’ve been there before . For some churchgoers the gospel invitation to believe and be saved as been head over and over again- they’ve been there before, yes they have not responded. I do hope that’s not you. There are some words from the exiled people of Judah in Jeremiah 8:20 which we do well to heed “the harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.”

Steve Piggott
October 2015

Comments on this entry are closed.

Previous post:

Next post: