Get Real: Work Edition

What is the work I do each day, here in the life I have been given to live?

There is one task that guides all others: to create in my home a microcosm of the world I wish to inhabit. And so each day I take up the jobs of nurturing children and self, husband and community. I strive to use resources wisely, and reverently, and to give thanks and offer prayers to the holy ones.

I work to sweep and wash, so that there is order and beauty all around us. I work to make small things from scratch: a meal, a dress, a poem, a song, so that we are nourished body and soul. I work to understand the mysteries, and to honor them. I work to listen to the inner glimmers of my inspiration, to let them gestate and, in their time, be born. I work slowly, each year with stronger faith in the eventual unfolding of my dreams and destiny. I work with a compass in my hand, following it in the direction of wholeness.

And how do I do this work?

I do it by trusting in the cycles of life, which sometimes guide me to rest and be still, and sometimes move me to create and build and work harder than ever before. I do it by eating eggs for breakfast, and by getting a good night’s sleep. I do it by being curious, and by following one interest to the next, even when it brings me back to the place I started from. I do it by letting go of my ambitions to be the best, or famous, or rich, and exchanging them for the ambition to be present and in my integrity. I do it by being a little on the type-A side.

I do it imperfectly, with many small failures that, when I persist and practice, yield unexpected success. For though I have faith, I a still delighted when the spinning wheel gives yarn into my hands, when I don’t lose my temper, when the seeds I plant take root in garden soil, when the children follow my guidance, when my beloved community of friends gathers at night and our laughter fills the air.

My tremendous sense of purpose as a homemaker–a human being blessed to be employed almost entirely in bread labor, or work that is essential to life, but not necessarily paid–comes from a feeling of having both a responsibility and an opportunity. I am given the gift of living this good life, and in return I work to do it justice.

And so each day, the world I make, and that you do, too, becomes more and more the world we all seek to live in.

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This is the latest installment of Get Real, a series of posts being written by a group of amazing women bloggers. Each week, we visit a different topic related to homemaking and how it is we do it “all.” The collected wisdom that has been generated from our different but similar vantages has been such a joy to read, and I’m honored to be among them. Please do visit their posts this week!

http://plainandjoyfulliving.blogspot.com/

http://www.shivayanaturals.com

http://www.hullabaloohomestead.com/

http://ourashgrove.blogspot.com/

https://oldrecipe.wordpress.com/

http://thisblessedlife-aubrey.blogspot.com/

http://www.localgrain.org/fieldsandfire