Manuscript Found in Accra

Do not try to make the road shorter, but travel it in such a way that every action leaves the land more fertile and the landscape more beautiful.

Do not try to be the Master of Time. If you pick the fruit you planted too early, it will be green and give pleasure to no one. If, out of fear or insecurity, you decide to put off the moment of making the Offering, the fruit will have rotted.

Therefore, respect the time between sowing and harvesting.

Then await the miracle of the transformation.

Until the wheat is in the oven, it cannot be called bread.

Until the words are spoken, they cannot be called a poem.

Until the threads are woven together by the hands of the person working them, they cannot be called cloth.

When the moment comes to show others your Offering, they will be amazed and will say to one another: “There is a successful man, because everyone wants the fruits of his labors.”

No one will ask what it cost to produce those fruits because anyone who does his work with love fills his creation with such intensity that it cannot be perceived by the eyes. Just as an acrobat flies easily through the air with no apparent effort, success, when it comes, seems the most natural thing in the world.

Meanwhile, if anyone did dare to ask, the answer would be: I considered giving up. I thought God was no longer listening to me, I often had to change direction, and, on other occasions, I lost my way. Despite everything, though, I found it again and carried on, because I was convinced there was no other way to live my life.

I learned which bridges should be crossed and which should be burned.

I am poet, farmer, artist, soldier, father, trader, seller, teacher, politician, sage, and someone who merely takes care of home and children.

I am aware that there are many people more famous than I and, often, that fame is richly deserved. In other cases, it is merely a manifestation of vanity or ambition and will not stand the test of time.

What is success?

It is being able to go to bed each night with your soul at peace.

And Almira, who still believed that an army of angels and archangels would descend from the heavens to protect the sacred city, said:

“Talk to us about miracles.”

And he answered:

What is a miracle?

We can define it in various ways: as something that goes against the laws of nature, an intercession in moments of deep crisis, healings and visions, an impossible encounter, or a last-minute intervention when the Unwanted Visitor arrives.

All these definitions are true, but a miracle goes beyond even that; it’s something that suddenly fills our hearts with Love. When that happens, we feel a profound reverence for the grace God has bestowed on us.

Give us this day, Lord, our daily miracle.

Even if we are incapable of noticing it because our mind is focused on great deeds and conquests. Even if we are too preoccupied with day-to-day life to know that our path was changed by it.

And when we are sad, help us to keep our eyes open to the life around us: a flower opening, the stars in the sky, the distant singing of a bird or a child’s voice nearby.

Help us to understand that there are certain things so important that we have to discover them without anyone’s help, and that we should not feel alone and helpless because You are there with us, ready to intervene if our feet go perilously close to the abyss.

Help us to continue onward despite the fear and to accept the inexplicable despite our need to explain and know everything.

Help us to understand that Love’s strength lies in its contradictions and that Love lasts because it changes and not because it stays the same and never faces any challenges.

And to understand, too, that each time we see the humble exalted and the arrogant humbled, we are witnessing a miracle.

Help us to know that when our legs are tired, we can keep walking, thanks to the strength in our hearts, and that when our hearts are tired, we can still carry on, thanks to the strength of our Faith.

Help us to see in each grain of desert sand proof of the miracle of difference, and may that encourage us to accept ourselves as we are. Because just as no two grains of sand are alike, so no two human beings will think and act in the same way.