Keep on Keeping on

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My husband takes it personally. He is determined to convince the moles they have not yet understood the boundaries of our land. Every year he plans new strategies, with new gadgets and renewed optimism.

Those moles, however, remain serenely unmoved. They just keep on keeping on - quietly tunnelling, popping up all over the place where they’re least expected.

Seeing those small mounds of soil, I find myself surprisingly comforted. Because they show me that sometimes progress happens out of sight - unnoticed, against the odds - until one day it quietly breaks the surface. And when life feels heavy - as it often does at this point in the year -  that kind of persistence begins to feel like hope. Not a dramatic change or restart, just a gentle unseen push in the right direction.

I’m taken back to a moment in the story of Mary, mother of Jesus, told in the Qur’an, the book Muslims turn to for guidance. Mary is alone, exhausted in labour, and in need of nourishment. A voice tells Mary to shake the trunk of a palm tree - an almost impossible action for anyone, let alone a woman about to give birth. Mary does what she can. From that small  movement, ripe dates fall.

That moment – unseen effort without knowing what, if anything, will come of it -  echoes in my much more ordinary world. Because however impossible it seems, those moles keep going.

My husband’s battle with them has become something of a family joke. For his last birthday, a card arrived declaring “Holey Moley”.  And he was given a small stone mole, now sitting in one of our flower pots outside the kitchen.

It looks back at me cheekily every day, reminding me that sometimes it really is enough to keep on keeping on.

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