Work--what does it mean?

After meeting our officiant last night, Jay and I finally have our ceremony put together. When I say finally, I actually mean we sat down and did it all in one day--nothing arduous or well-planned out or anything like that. However, for what it's worth I am pleased with the readings we chose. One is a poem by Maya Angelou and the other piece is an excerpt from Kahlil Gibran's work, The Prophet.



Since I had some time to kill today (or more likely felt like procrastinating), I decided to read Gibran's whole book, and I found it a quick and easy read, with some parts more meaningful to me than others.

I want to highlight his section that discusses work. While marriage and love and all that good stuff is on my mind a lot these days (and Gibran talks about them in the book, as well), so is the important topic of work (and I think this latter topic relates to a lot of people right now).

Below I include some quotes that spoke to me. Interestingly enough as I read through this particular section (On work), I found that love and marriage are actually quite connected to work; in fact, from Gibran's perspective, seems as though love and work are married to one another--they are deeply connected. Gibran also notes that work is one with the earth's energy and being--which I like, of course :)

Gibran says:

"You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth."

"When you work you fulfill a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born, and 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."

Related to the importance of all occupations and types of work, Gibran notes, "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."

Food for thought:

* What does work mean to you?

* Do you think that your "work is love made visible"? Why or why not?

* What would happen if mainstream culture found Gibran's observations to be real possibilities in our lives and in our work? What would work mean to us, then? What would the world look like? What would our life be like? What would we be like?

* What holds us back from believing that the work we do can be part of the life we live and that we can be in love with that life and the work?

* In response to Gibran's comment that "loving life through labour is to be intimate with life's inmost secret," what are the implications for the jobless?

* How can we find work for all people? Or, more appropriately, how do we appreciate the gifts each individual brings forth into the world?

* How do we find the work that is already within ourselves, and once we know it, how do we go about sharing ourselves with the world?