Hedging

Lovely sunny evening – we moored up short of Brewood. Opposite us a tractor came down the field, hedging. That is to say, it had a huge flat blade it ran vertically along the hedge, cutting off all the bits that stuck out.

A friend and colleague once commented on the difference between this and the older art of hedging, in which you take the bits that stick out and bind them back in, constructing something strong and beautiful. He likened it to two types of theology. If something in life doesn't fit your system, you can cut it off, ignore it. Or you can take it, think it through, incorporate it, work out how it fits into the whole.

Today I read a student's dissertation about the persecution suffered by Christians in Bulgaria during the Communist period, and how they responded to it. That they survived was because they had a faith that could incorporate severe suffering without creating an untenable dichotomy. They wove their experience into their belief system, in a way that was beautiful and strong.

Hedging is a dying art.