Work is more than work. Work is a way of creating and contributing; It is giving to the world; it is sacramental, because It is serving. It is a yielding up and a showing, WHATEVER it is you did — The best-made bed, the best-written book, the best piece of pottery you had within you. It is good for the psyche and good for the soul.
In the frozen fields of my life
there are no shortcuts to spring,
but stories of great birds in migration
carrying small ones on their backs,
predators flying next to warblers
they would, in a different season, eat.
Stunned by the astonishing mix in this uneasy world
that plunges in a single day from despair
to hope and back again, I commend my life
to Ruskin's difficult duty of delight,
and to that most beautiful form of courage,
to be happy.