The referenced prayer below is from the Northumbria Community's Mid-Day Prayer liturgy.
The work of my hands is
the work of my life.
Not in halls of academia,
nor business, nor healing,
nor ministry, but
in the earthy dealings of
the everyday.
Hands that have long labored,
often when no one was watching,
at the myriad, ordinary, sometimes-dirty,
consecrated tasks,
to which I have
been called.
Holding my babies.
And theirs.
Guiding bewildered newborns'
tiny mouths to
their mother's milk.
Turning, feeding, washing, dressing
gentle souls who could
no longer
care for themselves,
work demeaned by others,
caring for the least of these.
Milking sixty cows.
Or one.
Caring for goats and sheep,
and chickens and turkeys,
an unpredictable donkey, two pigs,
and a couple of geese.
Feeding, mucking stalls,
stacking hay, carrying water,
collecting eggs,
stringing fences that contained the beef herd,
cradling a just-born calf as its life faded
away into the snow.
Decades of plants,
decades of gardens,
digging, planting, weeding, harvesting
to sustain humans,
body, soul and spirit.
Returning to the land its
glad abundance and inviting
the wild ones to dine,
one small,
or sometimes large,
plot at a time.
Hands on the latch,
opening the door
to God and to
those who come
seeking,
creating spaces of safety,
spaces of welcome,
spaces of
communion.
These hands are no longer young,
nor beautiful.
They are worn and sometimes rough,
slowly becoming misshapen,
often tired,
yet eager, still,
to take up the work
yet before
them.
And so, gratefully,
I pray,
"Let the beauty of the Lord be upon me.
Establish, Thou, the work of my hands.
Establish, Thou, the work of my hands."
