The children and I read from a poetry book many mornings. This is the Wordsworth poem we read recently. Even out here it is easy to get caught up in ‘getting and spending’, and making a living can easily overpower making a life. The two are not mutually exclusive, of course, but merging them successfully requires reflection and intention.

"The World Is Too Much With Us" 

The World is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers,

Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given

our hearts away, A sordid boon! This sea that

bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that

will be howling at all hours, And are up -gathered

now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything,

we are out of tune; It moves us not.-Great God!

I’d rather be a Pagan suckled in a creed outworn,

So might I, standing on the pleasant Iea, Have

glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have

sight of Proteus rising from the sea, Or hear

old Triton blow his wreathed horn.