To live a life

What is it to live a life, to live a life for God?  Surely it is not to shut away from life, to live with hemmed in mind and bound skirts?  Life, this life we live, this life that pours from now and here, that shimmers before us in unmade choices, that stretches behind and before in ropes of love and knowing, that has carved out a place for you and me, a place of our own, of home, wherever journeying may carry, this life is gift to be lived, not shunned.  This is life to be tasted and savoured, digested not wasted, filling our stomachs and minds and hearts.  This is our go at it, our full-blown flying in the face of it, the haste of it, our teasing out the tasks of it, the planting our ways in it, the craze of it, the daffodil dying and mountain blessing days of it.  This is the spot where history and earth tides meet for me, to know the now, to voyage on tomorrow, to plant promises and learn lessons of kindness and sharing, to till gratitude into the soil that I work, to notice the small things that make up my life, my day, my moment, and celebrate being here to notice, to care.  

If my life is God’s gift to be lived each moment then I can live it in all the colours and phases that occupy my time, not just the ones that offer easy delight, but the parts that seem dull and ordinary, or that challenge and stretch me, in the noise and chaos and bustle as well as the oases of peace and calm.  And each time I find myself shirking or berating the lot that falls me that day, I remind myself that it is part of being alive, a gift that I might not have but do, and so all that is parcelled in the package is opportunity to grin again, to know and grow and smile and hold and shake and change and be again.  

And the work of God?  Is it always heavy-duty or is a large part of it treating the people and the world we meet day by day with love, nurturing strangers with smiles, encouraging the sun and spiders on their way?  Is it learning to let go of the things that twist, and trusting the hollows?  Is it simply being someone who others can trust, and who works at being a friend?  It must, after all, be something that we all can do, not just the great ones.  And it will be something that, if we do it well, will bring joy.