Bed-making duplicates the cosmic order, because you make order out of chaos, and that’s a good thing to do when you first awaken, because you’re reenacting the creation of the world in a symbolic manner. It’s a good way to get your day going.
-Jordan Peterson, in an interview
GRATEFULNESS
Each day the engine of my gratefulness
must be coaxed and primed into action.
Of course like any old clunker,
it would just as soon stay put.
For even after the labored start beats the inertia,
and the plume of white smoke struggles upward,
the same hills always appear,
soaring daily—tall and ominous as before.
There is the long slow hill of “aging”
so gradual and smooth at first.
And then that steep grade called “the news.”
Yes, and always some mountain of a war
looming out there, never too far in the distance.
Even an old idea or a feeling long abandoned
might conspire to halt this fragile progress –
valves sputtering, tires flattening, clutch slipping.
But the old “potato, potato, potato” sound
of the engine, and all its mysterious fuel,
for which I am truly grateful
somehow
keeps stumbling along.
-Dale Biron
“The bee is more honoured than other animals,
not because she labors,
but because she labors for others.”
– St. John Chrysostom
Toil is man’s allotment;
toil of brain, or toil of hands,
or a grief that’s more than either,
the grief and sin of idleness.
-Herman Melville
In addition to that pithy quote, I found an old blog post of mine on the topic of work, in which my stories illustrate to some degree what I think Chesterton was saying, quoted in this post last week. It’s almost ten years old: “Art and happiness flow from love and work.” It was a good reminder to me of things that haven’t changed.
Let me amend Melville’s statement, too, because the categories he mentions don’t seem to include a place for prayer, which is also work, of the most essential sort. We pray from our hearts, or our spirit, with the help of our bodies.
I wish you all the joy of good work, strengthening prayer, and satisfied rest. ❤
