When I Consider How My Life's Been Spent

A Poem

Several years back I was connected with a site called The High Calling, which was an online publication “dedicated to the integration of faith and work.” It has since been folded into another site called The Theology of Work Project. There’s lots of good stuff over there. You should check it out.

Those were good, good days. I learned so much, got to write a few pieces, and made some dear friends. Those retreats at Laity Lodge on the Frio River in Texas are among my most treasured memories.

Sometimes on the site, we were encouraged to participate in a Random Act of Poetry challenge. Cuz poetry belongs at work. Just ask my friend Glynn Young. He wrote a whole book about it titled—ta-da—Poetry at Work.

So anyway, one time we were asked to choose a poem that had had an impact on us and then write about it. I’d forgotten all about it until I recently found my response. I had included it as part of a month-long series on aging I’d written.

I chose John Milton’s sonnet, “When I Consider How My Light is Spent.” Remember poor John went blind by the time he was 44.

 When I Consider How My Light is Spent

When I consider how my light is spent,

   Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,

   And that one Talent which is death to hide

   Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

   My true account, lest he returning chide;

   “Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”

   I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent

That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need

   Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best

   Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state

Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed

   And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest:

   They also serve who only stand and wait.

~John Milton (1650s)

And this is my not-a-sonnet.

When I Consider How My Life’s Been Spent

When I consider how my life’s been spent

Up to this point in trying hard to meet

The expectations man laid at my feet

And Martha work wore thin this fragile tent,

I long for years that I perceive long lost

While secret passion lay unclaimed, unused

And time that’s given all I fear abused

I didn’t take the time to count the cost.

Then focus clears and now I see anew

My days within His loving hands He holds

My Mary heart finds rest, my burden rolls

I am allowed to be before I do. 

~Sandra Heska King (2010)

TO-DO LIST

1. Share your favorite poem.

2. Use it as a jumping off point for your own poem.

3. Share in the comments.

4. Mark you calendar: Random Acts of Poetry Day, October 4, 2023

NOTE: My husband grew up on a centennial farm (est. 1854). His family raised dairy cattle. Photos are of the big house. There was a little house and a big barn and a milk house. His parents sold this part of the farm 45 or so years back. I think was more sad than anyone else. The buildings deteriorated over the years, and recently everything was bulldozed. Nothing is left. All that life and history buried. Aged out. There’s a headstone in the local cemetery with the name of a little girl who died when she was 6—two years after D’s ancestors moved from New York. The cemetery hadn’t been created for years after that. The local funeral director said it’s likely she had been buried on the farm. RIP, sweet one.