Anyone who keeps cattle or, like us, sheep, inevitably experience a recurring concern for the condition of their grazing. This is true of large livestock farms as well as smallholdings with just a few acres and a handful of sheep. Is there enough grass to last from Spring to Autumn? How will we manage if there is a Summer drought? Is there enough hay or silage, either cropped from your own land or bought in, to see the animals through the Winter? The current concern is will the new season's grass growth get sufficiently underway for when the ewes, feeding their new lambs, are turned out? Grass pastures are so fundamental for livestock farmers. They are not just background scenery. But they can easily go unnoticed.
Lent is probably a good time to reflect on those things we should feel thankful for. There's also good reasons to do so for promoting positive mental health too. There is accumulating evidence that gratefulness improves mental wellbeing through increased social connectedness and an enhanced presence of meaning in life. If for no other reason, these are good grounds for cultivating an attitude of gratefulness and an awareness of things to be thankful for.
We all benefit from individual, unsolicited, gifts and graces, large and small, even if for the most part we are not always aware of them. Sometimes even when they are staring us in the face ("When did we see you hungry and feed you...?"). They are like the numerous individual blades of grass in a field or lawn. They are just there. Each one, an unnoticed gift.
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| "Piglet noticed that even though he had a very small heart, it could hold a rather large amount of gratitude". A.A. Milne |
For more Lenten reflections, go to Angela's Tracing Rainbows blog.
This is lovely, thank you Philip
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