It seems when an important concept comes one’s way it just keeps echoing until it sinks deeply in the heart. Shea Darian shares the lessons she learned from her mother about the deeper meaning of our work:

“Chop wood, carry water. Wash dishes. Sweep floors. Bake bread. Wipe noses. Mow grass. Pick up toys. Fold clothes. Small gestures of usefulness. Small. As i wash dishes I look at my hands and smile at how much they are becoming replica’s of my mother’s. I see her ironing freshly laundered clothes, slicing bread from the oven, tying the laces of my shoes. Her hands moved from task to task, as if they were opening intimately to the mystery of the ordinary.

Some days I forget the mystery…

With these everyday hands we birth usefulness and purpose. We create a compassionate servitude that can only be wrought through ordinary actions…

These days as I watch my hands opening more intimately to such small endeavors I think of my mother hundreds of miles away and I whisper, “No greater gift could you bestow.” Chop wood. Carry water. “Work is love made visible.” Our children will see it and sense it through the joy and meaning we find in our daily tasks. And they will be nurtured through these small gestures of compassion…

for the way we come to small things shows our reverence for all things.”

– Shea Darian Seven Times the Sun