There is always an enormous temptation in all of life
to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends
and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end.

It is so self-conscious, so apparently moral,
simply to step aside from the gaps
where the creeks and winds pour down, saying,
I never merited this grace, quite rightly,
and then to sulk along the rest of your days
on the edge of rage.

I won’t have it. 

The world is wilder than that in all directions,
more dangerous and bitter,
more extravagant and bright.

We are making hay
when we should be making whoopee;
we are raising tomatoes
when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus.
~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Other than a few exceptional circumstances in my life,
I have always played it safe:
living an itsy-bitsy life being a down-home, don’t rock the boat,
work hard and live-a-quiet-life kind of person,
growing hay and tomatoes and a few other things…

My grandparents lived that way, my parents lived that way.
I feel like it is bound in the twists and turns of my DNA.

I do know a thing or two about sulking on the edge of rage,
lost in a morass of seething bitterness about the state of the world.  Yet if I were honest about it, the discontent I feel is all about me, always about me.

I want to have accomplished more to deserve taking up space in my days on earth. But that’s a problem we all have, isn’t it?

We’re unworthy of such unmerited grace as has been shown to us, raising us from the holes we dig for ourselves. 
It is such a pure Gift I wait for,
borne out of God’s radical sacrifice
deserving from me a life of radical gratitude,
even when I choose to live it out a little quietly,
making hay and raising tomatoes.