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Kahlil Gibran
And an old priest said, "Speak to us of Religion."
And he said:
Have I spoken this day of aught else?
Is not religion all deeds and all reflection,
And that which is neither deed nor reflection,
but a wonder and a surprise ever springing in the soul,
even while the hands hew the stone or tend the loom?
Who can separate
his faith from his actions,
or his belief from his occupations?
Who can spread
his hours before him, saying,
"This for God and this for myself;
This for my soul, and this other for my body?"
All your hours
are wings that beat through space from self to self.
He who wears his
morality but as his best garment were better naked.
The wind and the
sun will tear no holes in his skin
And he who defines his conduct by ethics imprisons his song-bird in a cage.
The freest song comes not through bars and wires.
And he to whom
worshipping is a window,
to open but also to shut,
has not yet visited the house of his soul whose windows are from dawn to dawn.
Your daily life
is your temple and your religion.
Whenever you enter into it take with you your all.
Take the plough and the forge and the mallet and the lute,
The things you have fashioned in necessity or for delight.
For in reverie
you cannot rise above your achievements
nor fall lower than your failures.
And take with you all men:
For in adoration
you cannot fly higher than their hopes nor humble yourself lower than their
despair.
And if you would
know God be not therefore a solver of riddles.
Rather look
about you and you shall see Him playing with your children.
And look into
space;
you shall see Him walking in the cloud,
outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain.
You shall see
Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees.
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