Issue No 156
Magazine for the Irfon and Wye Valley Churches October 2013
Jesus Christ the Apple Tree by Reverend Carolyn Hall
Autumn has a distinctive feel. The ‘Harvest’. I chose not to draw air turns chilly and is full of leaves stalks of corn or a combine whirling in the wind. There are harvester but, instead, to draw a mists in the morning and dew so subject familiar to a child who heavy on the grass that it looks as had grown up on the northwest if it had rained during the night. coast of America where the main Clocks are turned forward an hour autumn harvest was apples. I and the days become suddenly drew an apple tree with a girl half short as night draws in early. way up a ladder and a basket full Autumn is also a time for harvest of apples on the ground. Needless festivals. When we are in church to say it did not win any prizes. It surrounded by decorations was not the image the judges depicting the fruits of the earth it expected. Even so, for me, is easy to be glad, to praise and to harvest time still brings to mind be thankful. In our country the picking of apples. churches we give thanks together Lucas Cranach the Elder - Virgin More than two thousand named with those who have laboured to and Child Under an Apple Tree varieties of apple exist, which bring in the harvest. The garden have been bred over the course of vegetables are nearly finished now and on the time from the wild crab apple. The three main farms the hay and silage are safely stored to types are sweet flavoured dessert apples, acidfeed the livestock during the cold months tasting cooking apples and apples grown for cider ahead. We feel secure and confident that we can and vinegar. In Europe the apple is the most face the winter to come. widely cultivated of tree grown fruits; it was the When I was seven I lived for a year in rural importance of the apple, perhaps, which gave rise Illinois in America. The town we lived in was to the idea that an apple was the fruit which the surrounded by fields where grain, mostly maize, serpent tempted Eve to eat in the Garden of Eden, was grown. The town itself consisted of a small and which she then gave to Adam. scattering of houses, a post office, a school, a Continued on page 5 church and a grain elevator where the farmers View online (wherever weighed their grain and stored it ready for sale. you are) using this QR code. Current As a newcomer going to a new school I entered a and previous issues are available. competition to draw a picture on the theme of
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