Gifts
Growing up We said a traditional Catholic "Grace Before Meals" daily. I must have uttered the phrase "Bless us O Lord for these thy gifts" hundreds of times always with the understanding we were speaking of the food that was set before us. Today, I'm thinking differently of what is meant by "gifts".
It's been a tough couple of weeks. School's demands are growing. We are being pushed more and more to have conversations about the copious amounts of data we have been collecting and that's been given from the vast amount of tests we continue to give. As a teacher, I feel like I'm spending more time on data and less time on planning... and while I know I've got to find a way to make these things work together as part of my system, I'm not there yet. I'm struggling to see how to marry them. That makes my work less joy- filled and more stressful.
At home, we've been struggling to keep the grass cut and the dishes washed and the laundry washed and folded. There just hasn't been much time for slowing and playing; things we believe in and value.
As I sit here on a Monday morning we've just completed a weekend of celebrating weddings and funerals. I'm feeling a bit drained. Some time for pausing and reflecting is in order. So I stopped. I took a day and decided to pause. I needed some time for catching up and to write.
Beginning and Ends
I'm feeling like I see alot of beginnings and ends lately. I've just witnessed the beginning of life for a beautiful and happy couple. I've seen beginning steps toward more mature decisions and better choices by my students. There have been some ends as well. The loss of my wife's beloved grandmother, the loss of time for detailed planning as I have always known it, and the loss of time for family.
Beginnings and ends have been ever present and more obvious in recent days and thoughts. I'm not sure how to necessarily handle them all as they seem to come and go so quickly and there are only so many hours in a day. So I hang on. And I decided to continue to look for the good and celebrate the positive- no matter what. My wife's cousin chose to take the occasion to remind us in her beautiful eulogy for their grandmother that children, through their young eyes see life for its good, before the eyes of the adult world catch up and confuse what and how we see things. I need to see things through younger eyes again. So I begin looking.
And I find reminders of these good things when I take the time to look. In a blessing before meals "gifts" in my minds eye have gone from the food we were fortunate to receive to the people we are surrounded by. I'm so fortunate during trying times to be surrounded by people that help me stand strong and bring a smile to my face as I struggle some. They are my gifts. I guess I may have spent too much time with bowed head as I uttered those words, failing to look up and see what was right in front of me; the gift of family and friends I was sharing the meal with with in addition to the nutrition I was getting.
Looking up, mid way through last week, I ran into Marge Piercy's "The Seven of Pentacles". And while I didn't have time to enter the entire poem into my journal. I tucked away a few lines that touched me and promised myself I'd get the rest when I had a quality moment for doing so. Her verse (shared below) reminds me of the beginnings and ends I'm witnessing.They remind me that real work; honest attention to detail, and following my heart's passion and recognition of the "gifts" I've received are all worth it. Especially because the fruits come with their internal clock. The long season does yield a harvest worth celebrating. It doesn't matter when the gifts arrive, it's knowing that they will always be present that matters.
So I'll stay the course. I'll celebrate both beginnings and ends. I'll recognize the gifts. and I'll take the harvest whenever it comes. It's always going to be be a part of my stronghold.
"The Seven of Pentacles"
by Marge Piercy
Under a sky the color of pea soup
she is looking at her work growing away there
actively, thickly like grapevines or pole beans
as things grow in the real world, slowly enough.
If you tend them properly, if you mulch, if you water,
if you provide birds that eat insects a home and winter food,
if the sun shines and you pick off caterpillars,
if the praying mantis comes and the lady bugs and the bees,
then the plants flourish, but at their own internal clock.
Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground.
You cannot tell always by looking what is happening.
More than half a tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.
Penetrate quietly as the earthworm that blows no trumpet.
Fight persistently as the creeper that brings down the tree.
Spread like the squash plant that overruns the garden.
Gnaw in the dark and use the sun to make sugar.
Weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses.
Live a life you can endure: make love that is loving.
Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in,
a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us
interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs.
Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen:
reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.
This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,
for every gardener knows that after the digging, after
the planting,
reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.
This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,
for every gardener knows that after the digging, after
the planting,
after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.
