There are two things that are meant to improve your chances of selling your house; the smell of freshly ground coffee and freshly baked bread. Apparently, the aroma of freshly baked bread evokes pleasant memories of childhood – and has more to do with chemistry than it does psychology.
In an effort to cut down on the use of plastic I have been baking my own bread now for some years, (using a bread maker, so perhaps not quite as “eco” as I could be). It’s lovely to wake up in the morning to the smell of warm fresh bread – as well as having my morning cup of tea and the opportunity to read a good book in bed.
What does the aroma of freshly baked bread remind you of?
I live next door to a farm and the past few weeks have seen the dust rising from the fields. At one point it looked like a sandstorm blowing across our back garden. The farmer had to take the opportunity as it arose to get in the harvest of wheat growing in the fields surrounding us on a dry day. No sooner had the crop been harvested than the farmer was out ploughing and sowing again for the next year’s crop. The land seems to have no rest, no time for recuperation and replenishment of the natural goodness in the soil. As soon as there are green shoots poking through the ground then the farmer is out again spraying fertilizers and pesticides to try and increase the yield.
Over the years the harvest has been later and later – as I write this in mid-September, there are still some fields of wheat remaining to be harvested.
Weather patterns have altered over the years, so that we have more and more extreme weather events, making the timing of harvesting more difficult to predict.
Yet we are so fortunate. There are areas of the world where there are no crops to harvest, due to extreme heat, or flooding; where livestock cannot be fed and livelihoods lost. There are areas of the world where a failed harvest is not a one-off event but part of a continuing cycle of famine and drought.
When you next experience the aroma of fresh bread – give thanks for the farmers who grew the crops, the millers who ground the wheat and the bakers who baked the bread. And pray for those areas of the world where there is no bread, where crops have failed and where climate change has its greatest impact. Pray also that the desire for more yield will not mean more chemicals, that food will be produced in ways that do not cause harm to God’s world.
Prayer: Almighty God, help us, the fortunate few who have much, to reach out to the hungry many who have so little. You created this world with enough food for all, yet in our striving for “bigger and better” we pollute your world and put others at risk. May we care for the soil so that all of creation can thrive, and none will go hungry. AMEN