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."

 

Abundance

She stood calmly as I milked, and we shared the early morning quiet of the milking barn in companionable silence. Soon others would arrive on the farm, but for those precious moments it was still just she and I, welcoming the day together, each in our own fashion.  She gave two gallons, filling the bucket with a rich, warm stream topped with a foamy layer of milk and air and the word that came to mind was, "abundance."

They hopped among fading flowers, moving up stems and over ground in their search for insects, seldom resting in one place long enough for me to get a good look at them. They had come from who knows where, winging their way southward to a warmer land with a more friendly winter, and had stopped in my yard to refuel. My native gardens are no longer flowering, for the most part, but the dried stalks still bear volumes of seed and host the tiny insects that these Common Yellowthroats were after. They stayed several hours, apparently finding food enough to make their stop worthwhile, and the word that came to mind was, "abundance."

In the Children's Garden, they fly purposely from flower to flower, drawing as much nectar as they can before the soon-to-be-coming freeze. Monarchs, Black-swallowtails, Painted Ladies, Cloudless Sulfurs, and Buckeyes feed on zinnia, Mexican sunflower, cosmos, tall ageratum, tropical milkweed and aromatic asters swaying in the breeze. I planted the flowers for just such moments, moments when butterflies need sustenance and a chance to rest from their constant foraging elsewhere on the farm. In these last warm days of autumn, I look around at the myriad colors of flowers and busyness of butterflies and the word that comes to mind, once again, is, "abundance."

The vines were long... ten feet long, some of them, and it was time to cut them and clear them away from the sweet potatoes that will be harvested tomorrow. In some parts of the world, sweet potatoes are grown for the vines rather than for the roots and ensure an almost endless supply of nutritious greens in the diet. Here, on the farm, I harvest the roots for people and the greens for the barnyard animals who seem to appreciate them as a great delicacy. I looked at the mounded pile of greens and imagined our cow and sheep and goats eagerly partaking and the word that came to mind was, "abundance."

 We, unfortunately, often think of the word "abundance" in terms of what we may purchase with our money. The dictionary defines it as, "overflowing", "teeming", "richly supplied". Many times, it has nothing to do with money, ours or anyone else's. We are all richly blessed by the abundance of the land that provides for us and for the creatures with whom we share our world. We are blessed by moments of abundance that turn our eyes away from our worries and, if even for a moment, to wonder. The more we determine to look for abundance all around us, the more we see, and in the seeing, the richer we become.

All Good Gifts

I am the gardener for a large garden, created for the benefit of school students who come on class trips to the farm where I work and live. The farm is a patchwork of woodlands, wetlands and open fields and sits along the banks of the Potomac River. As a result, I am richly blessed with the daily sightings bald eagles, ospreys, red shouldered hawks and the many non-raptors who make this place their home. And I am filled with gratitude for the land's bounty as I labor in the garden beds, harvesting for my husband and myself, and for others, while at the same time planting to support the many pollinators who live in and bless the garden with their presence. 

In the days to come I will be writing about my journeying towards a mindful life, marked by love for God and for a simplicity that allows me to hear His voice.  For this opening post, however, I'll just set down this song from the old movie Godspell that has been circling through my mind as I worked and walked today.  The words seem a fitting beginning for a series of writings about a life of many earthy blessings.

All Good Gifts

We plow the fields and scatter the good seed on the land.

But it is fed and watered by God's almighty hand.

He sends us snow in winter, the warmth to swell the grain.

The breezes and the sunshine, and soft refreshing rains.

We thank Thee, then, O Father, for all things bright and good.

The seed time and the harvest, our life, our health, our food.

No gifts have we to offer for all Thy love imparts,

But that which Thou desirest, our humble, thankful hearts.

All good gifts around us,

Are sent from Heaven above.

Then, thank the Lord, thank the Lord,

For all His love.