Pray for Opium

Well, I only have about ten more weeks left at Hilfield.  This has gone scarily quickly... though at times it has felt scarily slow.

Whilst I'm still here, I am going to blog once a week on something that has captivated me, and on Fridays I am going to do an additional blog on something I have felt particularly called to pray about because I have been here.

WEEK ONE: OPIUM POPPIES

Pretty little things aren't they.  They grow as a weed in many English gardens.  When they are small they are just a tuft of little silvery-white leaves.  But when they get bigger they are absolutely beautiful.

I was digging up a series of poppies yesterday, and a tonne of other weeds as well, when it suddenly struck me: yes, it was a wonderful thing that the poppies were beginning to bloom, that they looked so pretty.  

But as our poppies are coming into season, billions of opium poppies are coming into bloom on commercial plantations around the world.  Most of these will be used to produce medical opiates and other by-products.  Some of this year's crop will however be turned into drugs that will harm and kill tens of thousands.

And that wasn't all.  I was perhaps a little tired and achey digging up the vegetable beds, but thousands of people harvesting poppies live in terrifying poverty, trapped in cycles of debt and addiction themselves and ruled by corrupt governments who aid the drug-lords that enslave them.

Perhaps it isn't so pretty.

So this afternoon I will be praying:

• For those whose task it is to secure a good opium crop for legitimate purposes
• For those who will grow, harvest and consume illegal opiates
• And for the governments that assist the cycles of slavery that are required to grow illegal opiates.

Father, 
give us the grace to treasure the gifts you have given us,
to use those gifts for good,
and to love and care for those who deliver them to us;
In Jesus' name, Amen.

Common poppies in the vegetable garden