This year’s Eve Anderson tea, at the ChildLight USA Conference, was a much needed breath of fresh air. We had been at the conference less than 24 hours, and already we had learned so much! We were all so excited and full of new ideas to implement, but at the same time we had begun to feel a bit overwhelmed.

I had seen spots in the schedule for “processing time” and I had wondered what that was all about? It turned out that it had nothing to do with computer processors, but my brain needing some processing time! Similar to my computer slowing to a crawl because my fingers get going too fast, my brain was slowing to a crawl with all this new information!

Melanie Walker’s talk was on the “The Beauty of Time”, and it was just what we all needed. However, the first thing she did was give us a little copywork to do. Really! But the poem was by Wendell Berry, and it talked of the fact that we can and should give all we have in us to the field, but in the end, it’s God who provides the harvest.

I just couldn’t get over this poem. It spoke deeply to my heart, and so it seemed the perfect namesake for my new blog.

1979, no. X by Wendell Berry (The Sabbath Poems)

Whatever is foreseen in joy
Must be lived out from day to day.
Vision held open in the dark
By our ten thousand days of work.

Harvest will fill the barn; for that
The hand must ache, the face must sweat.
And yet no leaf or grain is filled
By work of ours; the field is tilled

And left to grace. That we may reap,
Great work is done while we’re asleep.
When we work well, a Sabbath mood
Rests on our day, and finds it good.