Going home and taking in its beauty is one of life's great treasures. So I discovered in the last six weeks. Allow that treasure to soothe, to nourish, to replenish the spiirt. Truth is there is so much more to life than its routine and drudgery, than its hurdles and barriers, than its never ending tasks. Everyday life is gift, given to us to wallow in, to feast upon and to give it a go as best we can, no matter what.
As I reflect upon this great gift of life, for some reason, I remember this song from 50 years ago. It is based on the Book of Ruth, in the Old Testament. Ruth was a foreigner in a foreign land, where she married a man from the Land of the Israelites. He had gone to her country with his family, their having fled famine. He then died in this foreign land, as had his brother and father. So his mother decided it was time to return home. Ruth, her newly widowed daughter-in-law, was determined, despite all, to go with her mother-in-law to her homeland. These were her words.
Wherever you go I shall go.
Wherever you live so shall I live.
Your people will be my people,
and your God will be my God too.
I want to say something to all of you
who have become a part
of the fabric of my life.
The color and texture
which you have brought into my being
have become a song,
and I want to sing it forever.
There is an energy in us
which makes things happen
when the paths of other persons
touch ours
and we have to be there
and let it happen.
When the time
of our particular sunset comes
our thing,
our accomplishment,
won’t really matter a great deal.
But the clarity and care
with which we have loved others
will speak with vitality
of the great gift of life
we have been for each other.
Wherever you die, I shall die,
and there shall I be buried beside you.
We will be together forever,
and our love will be the gift of our life.
© 1972 The Benedictine Foundation of the State of Vermont, Inc.
Thus living in Israel, Ruth met a man, Boaz, whom she married, and so achieved her own greatness, by becoming a forebear of King David, of Israel. An amazing story! Life is amazing! We just don't appreciate it often enough. Life is precious and full of riches to behold.
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