The Work of My Hands

 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."

 

This Fallen World

This evening I've been mulling over events of the last few days, and find my attitude softening, ever so slightly. I'm reminded, as if I need reminding, that life on earth is never going to be as God had originally intended for any of us, and that sometimes we are besieged by an ugliness over which we we have no control.

Yesterday was the first time in my life I have ever reported anyone for sexual harassment.  Not someone I worked with or knew, but someone here at the farm on a construction crew. Perhaps there are women who would not have found his behavior offensive, but I was shaken and fearful,even,of having to be around him for the duration of their work.  I talked with the HR woman for our organization and was blessed by her compassion and determination that it would not happen again, and sure enough, she made good on her promise.  But I keep wishing that I could have been more...more...I don't know exactly.  More effective, maybe. Not just for myself but for other women this man must surely make uncomfortable, and even for the man, himself. I wasn't sure whether he spoke English , and so did not attempt the conversation that was playing in my mind, but I wish I had felt that I could have. I wanted to ask him whether he had a daughter and if so, did he want her to someday feel as I did, to be treated as though she were nothing more than a thing to be toyed with for some perverted man's amusement.  What would he have said, I wonder. And I wonder whether that might have been the more redemptive approach, holding some possibility of change.  

There is constant construction going on at the farm right now, land being torn up, trees being torn down, continual noise and, what seems to me, carnage. Those who initiated and have made the decision that this project will go forward do not spend time on the land, be it this or any other. They work in offices and talk about "green living" and how this current effort will be a grand example of the same. And perhaps it will be, someday, when all the equipment is gone and top soil has been spread and new plants are growing where the old ones were ripped from the earth. Right now,all I see is destruction and sadness and some days I feel as though I hear the earth's cries.

Being hard on the man who frightened me and those who have decided to injure this land comes easily to me, and yet, if I am honest, I know that such is not the right response. I was reading of St Francis this evening, who showed mercy to those who were in the wrong, just as he did those who were in the right. Not condoning their behavior, but extending grace, that they might turn to God's also.  And so I am thinking about both as I retire for the night...thinking about those who cause pain and about the possibilities for redemption.  Both are pieces of living in this fallen world, as one who loves Jesus. I have more growing to do and hope that I can learn to hold the sometimes ugliness of this world and the beauty of forgiveness and redemption in tandem. Jesus did, and Francis did, and perhaps, someday, so can I.