On this Labor Day, I sit in deep gratitude for the life path I’ve been led to. It was after many experiences that I found what feels natural and deeply meaningful to me. I know some seek to materialize their passions and gifts, and want to recommend Parker Palmer’s book Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation. Palmer beautifully captures how "coincidences," connections, happenings along the way-when listening- can reveal one's "vocation." And, how not to betray vocation's gifts and joys through sole motivations of what might look like "success" in life work (promotions, more money, prestige, etc.).
Another author I love for his reflections on work, the value of all forms of work is Khalil Gibran. Here's an excerpt from his text The Prophet:
“Then a ploughman said, Speak to us of Work.
And he answered, saying:
You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.
For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life’s procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission toward the infinite.
When you work you are a flute whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.
Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison.Always have you been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune..
But I say to you that when you work you fulfill a part of earth’s furthest dream,
assigned to you when that dream was born,
And in keeping yourself with labor, you are in truth loving life,
And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.
…And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from you heart, even as if your beloved were to wear the cloth.
It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.
Often have I heard you say, as if saying in sleep, “He who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone is nobler that he who ploughs the soil.
And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet.”
But, I say, not in sleep but in the over-wakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades or grass;
And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.
Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half of man’s hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distill a poison in the wine.
And if you sing through as angels, and love not singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day the voices of the night.
Another author I love for his reflections on work, the value of all forms of work is Khalil Gibran. Here's an excerpt from his text The Prophet:
“Then a ploughman said, Speak to us of Work.
And he answered, saying:
You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.
For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life’s procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission toward the infinite.
When you work you are a flute whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.
Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison.Always have you been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune..
But I say to you that when you work you fulfill a part of earth’s furthest dream,
assigned to you when that dream was born,
And in keeping yourself with labor, you are in truth loving life,
And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.
…And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from you heart, even as if your beloved were to wear the cloth.
It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.
Often have I heard you say, as if saying in sleep, “He who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone is nobler that he who ploughs the soil.
And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet.”
But, I say, not in sleep but in the over-wakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades or grass;
And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.
Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half of man’s hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distill a poison in the wine.
And if you sing through as angels, and love not singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day the voices of the night.
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