GO AHEAD. DELIGHT IN THIS WORLD.

Be a gardener.
Dig a ditch,
toil and sweat
and turn the earth upside down
and seek the deepness
and water the plants in time.
Continue this labor
and make sweet floods to run
and noble and abundant fruits
to spring.
Take this food and drink
and carry it to God
as your true worship.
~Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love

Sometimes I get completely stumped buying a gift for someone. I want to say thank you so badly but nothing can come to mind of a gift that is fitting. Often when I think of a gift, it might seem trivial based on what that person did for me. I might want to thank a friend for a good listening session during one of our walks, but buying them a cup of coffee doesn’t seem comparable to what they gave me. Moreover, how do we say thank you to God for this life? Sometimes words don’t feel like enough.

This poem by Julian of Norwich gives us a beautiful way to express our gratitude and a different way to look at living in worship. She paints the picture of a person toiling on this earth. While many of us don’t have gardens or farms, we toil in other ways. We toil by working at our jobs, caring for others, and volunteering in our communities. From this toil, we all receive fruits from our labors. Our fruits might come in the joy that we feel after we leave from volunteering at the soup kitchen or from singing in the choir. As the expression goes, the joy is in the giving and this joy and fruit that we receive is our offering to God. God wants us to live in this world and find delight and joy where we can. This very process of living is a worship to God who gave us this earth to delight in. In asking the question, how can we say thank you to God for this life? Go ahead. Delight in this world.

Prayer

God, you have given us a world to labor and toil. Through our work and care for others, we can feel tremendous joy and love for this world and those around us. The deep joy that we feel is yet another way that you continue to provide for us. Amen.