Callings

While usefulness has its place, it’s also truethat rest and leisure have their pleasuregreater than merely making it throughto overdo again after a breather,or so the good monks told me last summer,Brother Bernard tending his bees, Andrewserving as Novice Master, prayers to prayfour times a day, each monk with a task to do.“You are becoming.” What? That’s less than clear.My grandmother, hunched over, with her bucketclimbs back before dawn from the barn. We’ll eatwhat she’ll cook up—ham, eggs: work, sleep. She’s here,she’ll whip me cream, slip a bill in my pocket,draw me from her feather bed well complete.