Reflections I

The Plough

In church today, most of the readings had to do with ploughs, crop and oxen.

My wandering mind had begun to alternatively daydream of harvesting corn and eating freshly prepared roasted beef so much so that when it was time for the sermon, I was expecting hostesses to come out from behind a curtain and serve first boiled corn and native pear followed by suya on veggie sticks while the preacher preached.

Sadly, that did not happen.

While there was an invitation to have cake the following week, the sermon was about focus.

The whole idea of the plenty ploughs was because with ploughs according to him, there is no room to look sideways, backwards or above. 

To have a well-prepared field with bountiful harvest (of maybe corn?) you have to bear the weight of the machinery, and push forward.

Still in church, I dropped a coin.

It made so much noise that I was worried everyone would turn around to stare down at the funny person wearing a thick hoodie in a room above 29°C.

After sighing in relief when this did not happen I dipped low and did a quick scan on the floor for my coin – I had come along with it so I could drop it in the donation box to light a candle for a prayer intention.

I did not find the coin. When I sat down, the teenager in front of me caught my attention. She whispered something to the man I assume is her father then pointed to her feet. She lifted her right foot and there was my coin! The man picked up the coin and put it on the pew in front of him before deciding to hand it back to the girl who leaned forward and dropped it into the collection box on the side.

I sat for a bit at the end of the service and watched people as they made their way out.

A pair of people fascinated me. With beautifully scattered liver spots on their hands, legs and neck, missing hairs and sagging age lined skin. I’d guess they just were pushing off the shores of mid nineties with the man having a little more experience than the woman.

Although she looked younger than him he had this look of confusion on his face until she nodded or bent her head this way, like she was reassuring him somehow. He'd reach for her randomly, help her to sit or stand, wrap his hands around her shoulders and give her a discrete squeeze every now and then. I wondered why she was whispering and using her fingers to gesticulate so much till I noticed he was wearing a hearing aid.

They were a team; they were in sync.