Forty two years of marriage… calculating cleaning toilets for forty of those years once a week (two years off for vacations and hired help sometimes), I have cleaned one toilet 2080 times. Some of those years we had multiple bathrooms but I am depressed enough looking at that figure without adding to it. No wonder I occasionally feel like Eeyore contemplating the meaning of my life. My friend Leisa and I were talking about jobs you don’t get to retire from and this one was at the top of the list. Cooking can be creative. Cleaning the house can leave you feeling good about the way it looks but cleaning toilets has no feel good component to it at all.
Sometimes work can be satisfying, fulfilling, well paid if nothing else. And sometimes, work is just work, necessary but not much reward. Brother Lawrence had a great deal to say about using our work, even the least satisfying work, as a vehicle for praising God. In theory, I appreciate the sentiment but in reality, I have to keep kicking myself as a reminder. All work is not created equal. Somehow most of us find a balance between the necessary evils like toilet cleaning and the work that gives meaning to our lives.
I am the pianist for our little church. On Tuesday we have choir practice for two hours. Sunday mornings, I get to church early so I can get ready for the prelude and arrange my music. This is work. No pay but the satisfaction of being involved in a church music program again. Every morning I muck out the horse and donkey stalls, feed Ferdinand the bull, feed the cats and dogs. Most days I feed the cows and regularly spray them for flies. No pay but the satisfaction of relationships with animals. I am cleaning house this week getting ready for a church picnic at our house this next Sunday. Sprucing up, changing the slipcovers, weeding the flower beds, dusting, picking up and cleaning up. No pay but the satisfaction of extending hospitality to a faith community that is dear to my heart.
An old hymn I used to sing at Pinetta Baptist Church comes to mind. “To the work! To the work! We are servants of God; Let us follow the path that our Master has trod; With the balm of his counsel our strength to renew, Let us do with our might what our hands find to do. Toiling on, toiling on, toiling on, toiling on; Let us hope (and trust) let us watch (and pray) and labor ‘til the Master comes.” Like the Jews in Nehemiah rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, give me a mind to work, Lord, so I might show myself worthy of this gift of life. Keep me moving on, toiling on, singing on my way as I do the work I have been given to do. Thank you for a healthy body that can work. And now, Lord, excuse me, please, while I go scrub toilets.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Down and dirty...
There I stood in my light teal western cut Carrhart shirt with mother of pearl snaps, riding pants and FatBaby pink and brown cowgirl boots, all splashed with wet black muck…
It had been a perfect Saturday. There was a cool breeze all day that broke up the hot humid weather pattern. Still no rain for us so everything is dying… trees, grass, flowers… and the creeks are drying up. I pulled some weeds and finished recovering the wicker sofa’s cushions. After I mucked out the stables, I worked the horses in the riding ring for awhile. Tomato sandwiches for lunch were followed by a nap. Then I rode Dixie and Junie B for two hours, playtime for me but hard work for them.
Michael came and asked for help pumping water for the cows. The small creek that feeds the reservoirs is completely dried up so we need to pump water from the larger creek. It, too, is much smaller now and Michael had a hard time getting enough water dammed up to pump. The cows had knocked over the drain pipe so all the water had drained out of the cistern leaving the fish stranded, gasping in the black muck. I reached in and grabbed him. Holding him in one hand, I drove the Kubota with the other hand and took him to the other reservoir where there was still some water. While Michael set up the pump, I began shoveling the accumulated muck out of the bottom of the reservoir. It was wet and sloppy, splashing in unexpected places. Soon I was heavily decorated with big, black wads of mud. We left the pump running and will need to run it again today to refill the reservoir. Cows drink a lot of water so we will be doing this until we get rain. According to the weather report, none is in sight for this week.
The contrast between the flooding with hurricane Irene and the drought here is striking. To the south and east, there has been rain. But in our small community, the ground is baked hard and is cracking. As always, the paradox of plenty and not enough exist side by side in nature and in our lives. There is no grass to speak of in the pastures. We have been feeding hay for some time, now. The generous rain in the spring meant we had a wonderful first cutting of hay. The drought meant a scarce second cutting and we enter fall and winter hoping we don’t have to buy hay. We will sell our young steers to cut down on the number of mouths we have to feed and hope for a mild winter.
How do we make sense of rain that falls on our neighbor’s farm but not on ours? The age old question of “Why them and not me?” never seems to receive an adequate answer. While I stand with black muck splashed all over me, I remember that rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. I give thanks for pumps and streams and reservoirs and cows, all a part of the wonderful gifts I have been given here at Sabbath Rest Farm. I will live these breezy cool days thanking God in advance for the rain that will come our way replenishing the streams and greening the grass. Even when I am covered in smelly black muck, I am blessed and I know it. Selah.
It had been a perfect Saturday. There was a cool breeze all day that broke up the hot humid weather pattern. Still no rain for us so everything is dying… trees, grass, flowers… and the creeks are drying up. I pulled some weeds and finished recovering the wicker sofa’s cushions. After I mucked out the stables, I worked the horses in the riding ring for awhile. Tomato sandwiches for lunch were followed by a nap. Then I rode Dixie and Junie B for two hours, playtime for me but hard work for them.
Michael came and asked for help pumping water for the cows. The small creek that feeds the reservoirs is completely dried up so we need to pump water from the larger creek. It, too, is much smaller now and Michael had a hard time getting enough water dammed up to pump. The cows had knocked over the drain pipe so all the water had drained out of the cistern leaving the fish stranded, gasping in the black muck. I reached in and grabbed him. Holding him in one hand, I drove the Kubota with the other hand and took him to the other reservoir where there was still some water. While Michael set up the pump, I began shoveling the accumulated muck out of the bottom of the reservoir. It was wet and sloppy, splashing in unexpected places. Soon I was heavily decorated with big, black wads of mud. We left the pump running and will need to run it again today to refill the reservoir. Cows drink a lot of water so we will be doing this until we get rain. According to the weather report, none is in sight for this week.
The contrast between the flooding with hurricane Irene and the drought here is striking. To the south and east, there has been rain. But in our small community, the ground is baked hard and is cracking. As always, the paradox of plenty and not enough exist side by side in nature and in our lives. There is no grass to speak of in the pastures. We have been feeding hay for some time, now. The generous rain in the spring meant we had a wonderful first cutting of hay. The drought meant a scarce second cutting and we enter fall and winter hoping we don’t have to buy hay. We will sell our young steers to cut down on the number of mouths we have to feed and hope for a mild winter.
How do we make sense of rain that falls on our neighbor’s farm but not on ours? The age old question of “Why them and not me?” never seems to receive an adequate answer. While I stand with black muck splashed all over me, I remember that rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. I give thanks for pumps and streams and reservoirs and cows, all a part of the wonderful gifts I have been given here at Sabbath Rest Farm. I will live these breezy cool days thanking God in advance for the rain that will come our way replenishing the streams and greening the grass. Even when I am covered in smelly black muck, I am blessed and I know it. Selah.
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