October: A Word from Richard

 Dear Friends

It is easy for us to blame the supermarkets for wasting up to 40% of a crop, but really they are responding to what we as customers require. Let’s face it, we never just pick up the first punnet of strawberries, we’ll pick up several, turn them over, have a good look at the contents and discard several before we choose the punnet that we think contains the most perfect fruit. We are discerning, savvy shoppers, we choose the best and reject the rest.

We live, thankfully, in a world where wheat and weeds grow together, where many seeds are sown but the fruit that comes from them is not uniform. We live in a world where lots of different circumstances come in to play to shape and mould outcomes. We live in a world of great diversity. Hopefully we are beginning to discover that ‘wonky veg’ does not need to be rejected, but that it is tasty and wholesome and that by discarding less we are doing more to care for the earth and its resources.

Wonky veg also reminds us that we are not to judge one another by outward appearance because that is not how God sees us. Each one of us, however wonky we may be, are beautiful and valuable to God and therefore to each other. Throughout the Bible from the anointing of David as king when Samuel is told, “People judge by outward appearance but God looks on the heart”, to Paul telling the earliest Christians, “Not many of you were wise in the world’s eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you. Instead God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise” we are introduced to a God who loves and accepts all those he has created and wants us to do so too

You are very much loved as one of God’s wonky, wonderful people!

Every blessing

Richard