For What Did I Take This Life?

I wrote this in response to a prompt from my spiritual director. Just another way of asking the existential question, "why are we / am I here?"  but the phrasing seemed to open me up to a different way of thinking.

A Domine

For what did I take this life?

To love God

Wherever I find God in me, in you,

In that which is hardest and heaviest and

In that which is light and joy-filled.

To express delight

When joy bubbles up in recognition of

Truth or beauty, in relationships or in

The outrageous pageant of the natural world.

To create things of enduring

Truth and beauty: my family, poetry,

Music and dancing, or opportunities to access these

For all who lack.

To share God, joy, creativity

In all the breadth of my activities,

In teaching, caring and enduring,

This day and every day that remains to me.