The Real Work

Wendell Berry’s Poem The Real Work goes like this:

“It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.”

There is profound truth hidden inside this poem, truth that frustrates me and causes me to marvel, wonder, and scratch my head at the mystery of life.  Today, Rodrigo’s taking the day off – the whole week actually – in an attempt to get started on the foundation to our new home.  A project that has been more difficult to begin than any project I’ve ever been a part of.  There’s adversity on every side.  I go back and forth, wondering if we’ve bit off more than we can chew, if we’re in over our heads.  And can only conclude – Yes and yes.  We are way in over our heads.

But why not be?  What’s the point of doing what is easy and without difficulty?  Where’s the growth, the adventure, the accomplishment in taking the wide road of ease?

As Berry says – the stream that is not impeded does not sing … and I want my life to sing, I want my family’s life to sing … so we lean in and ask God for help and accept that life is full of adversity, trials, frustrations and disappointments.  This doesn’t mean we’re going the wrong way.  Let me say this again.  This doesn’t mean we’re going the wrong way, or that you’re going the wrong way because something is hard.  It means that sometimes things are hard.  Period.

This weekend we stayed up at a friend’s cabin and went to church with them – where they work with some wonderful Mapuche people.  Mapuche’s are the native Chileans.  This is where I saw real hardship.  They live on the side of hills, and hack out a life that has adversity on every side, difficulty and pain at every turn of the corner.  And yet there was a rustic beauty to the simplicity, to the fresh mountain air, and the freedom to live a quiet life in the middle of nowhere.  They aren’t famous people, their lives are mostly hidden to the rest of the world, and to the people in big cities building platforms of fame and fortune. Their lives to many people are mostly insignificant.  But there on the hill, listening to the constant fall of rain, smelling the lush earth beneath my feet, the damp air all around, watching the baby lambs and goats frolic up and down their little mountain hills – I saw how significant their lives are. How beautiful life is.

There’s a mystery to the workings of this life.  We best not get confused about what’s really important, what really matters, and where our significance comes from.  Empires rise and fall, nations crumble, topple right over, and money is made and lost every day.  The people living on that hill will keep milking their cows, rising in the morning, making love, birthing babies, finding the courage to believe again after disappointments crash their dreams, and their lives will continue to glorify God and reveal the mystery of life in the hidden and quiet things.

One thing that’s happening on my little pilgrimage … is the re-birth of mystery, of wonder, of not needing to have all the answers or even wanting them.  To be content in the quiet and simple, in the beauty of ordinary life that we miss when we travel the long and disappointing road of trying to manage life, of attempting to box in mystery, and have all the answers.

The real work is to learn to let go and breathe, to live in wonder, to love with creativity those people right in front of you, and to lean in to the ordinary, mundane gifts of life that hold the most precious treasures for each one of us.  Let mystery sweep you off your feet, let the ordinary woo you into gratitude, and invite you into quiet simplicity.  Let God’s voice, once again, become the one you are silent for, patient for – the one you wait for.

Have a good Monday.

Much love,

Tina