Together on the Journey:
A Weekly Blog
On Wednesday afternoon, I decided to take a break and go for a walk down to the farmers market at Montgomery Inn. I had passed by it last week and didn’t have time to stop, but this week I was determined to explore. I wandered around the stalls piled high with fresh produce, baked goods, sauces and prepared foods. I took in all of the colours of the rainbow. I bought cherry tomatoes, lettuce, and pickles from a woman whose 9-month-old baby was asleep on her back.
I’ve always loved farmers markets because the experience of shopping there connects me more fully to creation and to my neighbour. I can find things that I would never find at the grocery store because they are grown on a smaller scale. I can ask the person who grew it what that particular variety tastes like. I can buy produce confident that it will last longer because it has skipped a few steps between farm and my plate. I can chat with my neighbours while we wait in line. When I visit a farmers market, I am often overcome with gratitude, and I give thanks to God for the bounty of the harvest, the farmers, the land, and the community created. For me, a city dweller, farmers markets are where I can experience creation more directly.
This week, on October 4, we mark the end of the Season of Creation with the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi. St. Francis was the founder of the Franciscan order of brothers, and was known for his devotion to God, radical poverty, humility, and connection to nature and animals. Because of his connection to animals, many churches mark this day with a ‘blessing of the animals’ service.
And so, it seems fitting to mark the end of the Season of Creation with a prayer he wrote, and may we hold on to this prayer and take it with us into the next season and beyond:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.