And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,
And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love;
And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.
And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that 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 speaking in sleep, "he who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is a nobler than he who ploughs the soil.
And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a 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 of 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 all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love;
And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.
And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that 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 speaking in sleep, "he who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is a nobler than he who ploughs the soil.
And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a 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 of 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.
Khalil Gibran, on Work
excerpt taken from The Prophet, 1923
posted by Sound & Sense at 6:36 PM
8 Comments:
I have that book somewhere, I got it for my 19th birtday, which is about 5 years ago. I never ever opened it.....now I am intrigued. And by the way, that is sooooo lame, why can't you type something yourself. Lazy BUM.
deep.
i'm not that deep
:-P
-schizm42
he who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is a nobler than he who ploughs the soil.
This reminds me of something:
Michelangelo used to say that sculptures he carved were already in the stone. All he did was chisel away the un-needed bits to bring them out.
I forgot where I read/heard this.
read the book edo and join us in our dorkhood
You are bitter because you are not cool like us. Haha.
I needed that.
Life is challenging. Sometimes that challenge evokes perseverence, tenacity.
Sometimes though, it can weigh you down, (especially when you don't handle some challenges well) and sometimes so heavily that you can begin to forget some of what you once saw in life... and then you come across something like this. I think you have to be looking, if only subconciously, but it shows up when you least expect it.
I was, as it happens, in the midst of a search on the finer points of supporting certain file formats with a unix variant.
Add +1 to your Karma pool : )
Thanks.
sadhu,
You attract the most random people to your blog. Really.
Ok strange people from your blog are coming over to mine. One dude is really amazed that he has the same as mine. He made sure he pointed that out...
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