What is it
(Rest or work)
That carries
The greatest weight
In your Kingdom?
Have we
Thrown them
Both into competition
With the other
Believing that
We are only loved
In our producing?
I see friends
Do more and more
For you
While I sit
In homely corners
And tend
To children.
It feels so futile.
So unexciting.
Like it’s not enough.
I dream
Of days
When I can
Put words
To paper
And make something
Out of nothing.
I do it today, even–
Partly for passion
Partly for proof;
To appease
A culture
That makes work
Its god.
Fueled by the power
Of consumption,
It’s killing us–
A people
Who were first
Created to simply
Be loved.
Who’s really
Behind the power
Of bringing Light to Darkness,
Of making
Beauty from Ashes,
Of bringing
Heaven to Earth?
Have we forgotten?
Help us learn
When to say
Enough.
Help us learn
When to stop creating
So as to stop destroying.
Help us learn
When to rest,
When to simply
Be.
Hope Anderson is a wife, mother, and therapist. She spends most of her days in constant discovery of what it means to be human. She values the experience of being seen, and shares her writings in the hopes that others might experience the same. She has a passion to see religious spaces become more trauma-informed and the complexity of our individual and collective stories honored.
