Poem of the Day--The Sons of Martha

One of my classes is Early Church and its Creeds; we spent most of the semester focusing on the first 300-400 years of Christian history and the writings of the great early theologians. Now we're going at speed through the Dark Ages in the west (i.e. the time between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the beginning of the Middle Ages), because, let's face it, it was the Dark Ages. Nothing much was happening, theologically. As for the 'practical' history, aside from the reign of Charlemagne it was pretty much one d@*^ thing after another.

Anyway, one of the main figures of the end of the Dark Ages was Bernard of Clairvaux, and we have a short section on him in the reading for tomorrow. In it is a quote he said about Mary and Martha. (For those of you who don't know the story, Mary and Martha were the sisters of Lazarus. At one point when Jesus was visiting them, Martha was doing the housework while Mary was listening to Jesus, and Martha asked Jesus to make her sister help. Instead, Jesus rebuked Martha, saying that Mary had chosen the "good part." Bernard said that "Martha's part, if that is our lot, must be borne with patience." Luke 10:38-42)

It reminded me of a poem by Rudyard Kipling, one of my favorite poets. It's a great poem, about the people who get their hands dirty.

( The Sons of Martha )