Tending and Leading

“We are all farmers tending a little part of the Lord’s vineyard.” – Sheri L. Dew

“But, in my opinion, this first-half-of-life task is no more than finding the starting gate. It is merely the warm-up act, not the full journey. It is the raft but not the shore. If you realize that there is a further journey, you might do the warm-up act quite differently, which would better prepare you for what follows. People at any age must know about the whole arc of their life and where it is tending and leading.”— Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

May you never consider yourself done, finished, dismissed, old news.
Keep going, expanding, contracting, learning, unlearning, questioning, praising, lamenting, wandering and wondering.
All of it, not just positive or negative or multiple choice.
Rather an essay of threads woven into a rich colorful fabric of nuance, complexity, beauty, acceptance, understanding, mystery, unknowing, trusting, faith, frustration, joy, exploration, discovery, dead-ends, turn-arounds, get ups and keep goings.
Tending and leading at the same time, sometimes one more than the other.
Through transitions, beginnings, middles-the long part, and endings to new beginnings.
The container and its contents.
What are you holding?
What needs to be poured out to be filled up again, to be nourished and renewed?
Open the windows, let fresh air in.
Cross the thresholds into the further journey.
Farmers tending.

“There is much evidence on several levels that there are at least two major tasks to human life. The first task is to build a strong “container” or identity; the second is to find the contents that the container was meant to hold.”— Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life