For the past couple of years I have been struggling with two seeming contradictory situations:
1. I have been beset with health and physical mobility problems that made me able to do less and less
2.I have become convinced that the most necessary task of the rest of my life is to discover how I can best respond to God's love and how I can show forth my own increasing awareness of the divinity that is with in me and every human being.
So that with diminished physical powers I am trying to find a way to explore and expand my God-given spiritual powers. This paradox is a hard one to explain and also seems to me to demand some kind of dedication and devotion. I am especially moved by how many times Jesus gives his newly chosen apostles just one simple direction :FOLLOW ME. I don't see what the path of my following would be. I do see clearly that for Jesus it was a path that lead him to Golgotha and I have seen the increase of my own suffering but it is not comparable to that of the Savior.
I am uneasy even expressing these ideas. When I feel a little better I start imagining myself undertaking and completing some pilgrimage or taking up some form of active work of mercy--visiting the imprisoned, helping the homeless. But I am unable to do much except send limited charitable donations to support the good works of others.
So what can I do? What is the path that I am to seek out and follow when I can barely walk at all? I am reminded of Milton's pignant question in the sonnet on his blindness
"Does God exact day-labor light denied?"
Here is the entire sonnet:
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."
"God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."
Either man's work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."
What are the implications of that answer that Patience gives in the poem for my life and my limits? So God does not need me to do anything? I need to adjust my attitude to bear my mild yoke. That is literally the rub for me.
That means that what is right before me--the daily inconvenient, pain ridden, boring routine of rising and trying to maintain this household that consists of a person-me- who can do very little, and a person --my husband-- with dementia and memory loss who can do many things but no longer knows how. That is the meal the Lord has set before me and that the poet George Herbert tells us is a LOVE FEAST?
| 286. Love |
| LOVE bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back, | |
| Guilty of dust and sin. | |
| But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack | |
| From my first entrance in, | |
| Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning | 5 |
| If I lack'd anything. | |
| 'A guest,' I answer'd, 'worthy to be here:' | |
| Love said, 'You shall be he.' | |
| 'I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear, | |
| I cannot look on Thee.' | 10 |
| Love took my hand and smiling did reply, | |
| 'Who made the eyes but I?' | |
| 'Truth, Lord; but I have marr'd them: let my shame | |
| Go where it doth deserve.' | |
| 'And know you not,' says Love, 'Who bore the blame?' | 15 |
| 'My dear, then I will serve.' | |
| 'You must sit down,' says Love, 'and taste my meat.' | |
| So I did sit and eat. I CANNOT LOOK ON THEE Where do I go from here? |
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