Work is love made visible

| life

Many people live for the weekends and see work as something that gets in the way of living. Many people wish they had more free time for their hobbies, and fantasize about having a housekeeper who can take care of all the chores.

Work and life aren’t all that bad, actually. When you take a different perspective, you can get more value out of that time. I like this poem from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet:

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 towards the infinite.
When you work you are a flute through 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 you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.
But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born,
And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,
And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.
But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written.
You have been told also that life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.
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 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 overwakefulness 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 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 man’s hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.

I get to work with love almost all the time. I remember a few times when I’ve been reluctant, resentful, or distracted, but I’m getting better at bringing love to what I do. I love the kind of difference I can help make and the kind of work I get to do. I love the way we build our lives together. I love, because what else is there?

It helps that my husband and I do many of our chores together. We both enjoy cooking, so we chat while preparing the next week’s meals. We watch movies while folding laundry. We talk about our plans while buying groceries. This means that chores aren’t just love-in-the-abstract, they’re love in reality – opportunities for us to connect and make life better for each other.

Work and housework are both ways to connect with the rhythms of life and with people around us. You can treat these things as interruptions and enemies, but there’s tremendous power in treating these things as friends.

(The Prophet appears to be in the public domain in Canada, yay!)

You can comment with Disqus or you can e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com.