Saturday, June 19, 2010

Cooking Beans

Cooking Beans June 19 2010


The humble daily tasks --

I shun them often.

They take up time –they make me stop and wait.

I smell the snap beans steaming as I sit and write.

Snap. Snap. Patiently I broke both ends of all the beans, and put them in the pot to cook –

A measured job that took the time it took

And let me rest and know the boundless nature of the present –

Unexpected gift from summer’s bounty.



Reflection

Cleaning, cooking, caring for people and humble objects. I’ve always been impatient with these tasks. They weren’t stimulating, had no glory attached. I clung to my ambitions, to my love for feeling special and powerful. These were jobs for humble people – jobs that needed doing over and over, leaving no mark on history. I longed to do the impressive things!

Somehow, though, my passage through the loss of the person closest to me, my partner Ellen, opened my spirit to the beauty and resonance of those humble tasks. From her I learned that my time on earth is a precious treasure, and that the rewards come from being fully present to the physical impressions and the present moments that wash over me – a cascade of sensory wealth through which I can know the Creator through the created. In performing these lowly tasks to perfection, I both receive and express love. What other meaning is there to Heaven than loving, being loved, and experiencing the Divine? I am grateful for that mess of snap beans and for all of summer’s gifts.