Several days ago, our car got stuck in the driveway. It took us Hours to get out of the house. We shoveled, we poured ashes, we shoveled out the tires some more, we pushed from both directions and screamed and yelled and straightened tires and it still took a good long while.
This is nature's way of saying "Stay the F* Home." It's winter. We should be in a small, cozy, warm house, pulling heads of garlic off our braid and eating root vegetables and jarred summer bounty. We should be sleeping, ordering seeds, and cleaning our tools for the spring, planning where we'll plant.
But I digress.
The car. It was stuck. Amber was at the top of the drive shoveling down, Deanne and I were working closer to the car to try to get it unstuck. I was using a shovel. Not a snow shovel, a normal, metal shovel. It was not the proper tool. When you use the snow shovel, you can hold it at waist height and walk forward, and the snow parts in front of you effortlessly. I was using this metal shovel, frustratedly, because there was no other snow shovel available. Deanne and I felt Fruitless as Amber made progress elsewhere with her appropriate tool.
It dawned on me that this was toilsome. This was what the Bible meant whenever it said that man Toiled. Working foolishly, in vain, fruitlessly, putting your life energy into a system that gives no output.
I could keep going, but it'd turn into more of a rant. Mostly I just wanted to share that I finally Really understood the word toil.
This is nature's way of saying "Stay the F* Home." It's winter. We should be in a small, cozy, warm house, pulling heads of garlic off our braid and eating root vegetables and jarred summer bounty. We should be sleeping, ordering seeds, and cleaning our tools for the spring, planning where we'll plant.
But I digress.
The car. It was stuck. Amber was at the top of the drive shoveling down, Deanne and I were working closer to the car to try to get it unstuck. I was using a shovel. Not a snow shovel, a normal, metal shovel. It was not the proper tool. When you use the snow shovel, you can hold it at waist height and walk forward, and the snow parts in front of you effortlessly. I was using this metal shovel, frustratedly, because there was no other snow shovel available. Deanne and I felt Fruitless as Amber made progress elsewhere with her appropriate tool.
It dawned on me that this was toilsome. This was what the Bible meant whenever it said that man Toiled. Working foolishly, in vain, fruitlessly, putting your life energy into a system that gives no output.
I could keep going, but it'd turn into more of a rant. Mostly I just wanted to share that I finally Really understood the word toil.
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