Colleen Palmer

Methodist Local Preacher

 

As I look out of my kitchen window I can not only see the ducks pecking at their grain but also a heavily laden tree of Blenheim Orange apples bowing its branches. Autumn has certainly arrived with its bounteous store of apples this year

 

It never fails to amaze me how wonderful trees are; taking up so little ground but often producing an abundance of fruit - be it nuts, bananas or apples!

 

As a child of the country I am familiar with orchards of pear, plum and apple. In the village where I grew up an apple storage factory was opened in the 1950s and mother went to work there. The apples were wrapped in tissue paper, boxed and put into cold storage. How times change!

 

An apple a day keeps the doctor away we were told as children. We seem to have such a variety of fruit available today that perhaps the poor old apple isn’t as popular as before

 

An apple for the teacher is another saying from a past age. In my nick-nack cupboard I have a delightful red apple with those words written on given to me by a pupil many years ago now. A pupil who excelled in memorising poetry and would surely love John Keats’ Ode to Autumn:

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

Close bosom friend of the maturing sun

 

I’m always fascinated by the story of John Chapman, commonly known by the name of Johnny Appleseed. John was an itinerant agriculturalist and missionary in America in the first half of the nineteenth century. He travelled widely planting and tending apple orchards. Sometimes at Guide camp we would sing the Grace:

“The Lord is good to me and so I thank the Lord for giving me the things I need, the sun and the rain and the appleseed, the Lord is good to me”

 

Have you tried apple cake? It is truly delicious! But so is apple crumble and Eve’s pudding

 

The faithful apple is so insignificant in some ways but it can play an invaluable part in our lives

 

Which reminds me of the fruit of the Spirit which St Paul talks about in the book of Galatians:-

love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, honesty, long suffering, and self-control

 

As fruit is important for our physical wellbeing, Christians know that working towards the Harvest of the Spirit helps for Spiritual wellbeing also