Manuscript Found in Accra
When we are walking our chosen path, we walk elegantly, emanating light.
Our steps are firm, our gaze keen, our movements beautiful. And even at the most difficult moments, our adversaries can see no signs of weakness, because our elegance protects us.
Elegance is accepted and admired because it makes no effort to be elegant.
Only Love gives form to what, once, we could not even dream of.
And only elegance allows that form to be made manifest.
And a man who always woke up early to take his flocks to the pastures around the city said:
“You have studied in order to be able to speak these beautiful words, but we have to work to support our families.”
And he answered:
Beautiful words are spoken by poets. And one day, someone will write:
I fell asleep and dreamed that life was only Happiness.
I woke and discovered that life was Duty.
I did my Duty and discovered that life was Happiness.
Work is the manifestation of Love that binds people together. Through it, we discover that we are incapable of living without other people, and that they need us just as much.
There are two types of work.
The first is the work we do because we have to in order to earn our daily bread. In that case, people are merely selling their time, not realizing that they can never buy it back.
They spend their entire existence dreaming of the day when they can finally rest. When that day comes, they will be too old to enjoy everything life has to offer. Such people never take responsibility for their actions. They say: “I have no choice.”
However, there is another type of work, which people also do in order to earn their daily bread, but in which they try to fill each minute with dedication and love for others.
This second type of work we call the Offering. For example, two people might be cooking the same meal and using exactly the same ingredients, but one is pouring Love into what he does and the other is merely trying to fill his belly. The result will be completely different, even though Love is not something that can be seen or weighed.
The person making the Offering is always rewarded. The more he shares out his affection, the more his affection grows.
When the Divine Energy set the Universe in motion, all the planets and stars, all the seas and forests, all the valleys and mountains were given the chance to take part in the Creation. And the same thing happened with mankind.
Some said: “No, we don’t want to. We won’t be able to right wrongs or punish injustice.”
Others said: “With the sweat of my brow I will water the fields, and that will be my way of praising the Creator.”
Then the devil came and whispered in his honeyed tones: “You will have to carry that rock up to the top of the hill, and, when you get there, it will roll back down again to the bottom.”
And all those who believed in the devil said: “The only meaning in life is to repeat the same task over and over.”
And those who did not believe in the devil answered: “Then I will love the rock that I have to carry to the top of the mountain. That way, each minute by its side will be a minute spent closer to the one I love.”
The Offering is a wordless prayer. And like all prayers, it requires discipline—not the discipline of slavery, but of free choice.
There is no point in saying: “Fate was unfair to me. While others are following their dreams, here I am just doing my job and earning my living.”
Fate is never unfair to anyone. We are all free to love or hate what we do.
When we love, we find the same joy in our daily activity as do those who one day set off in search of their dreams.
No one can know the importance or greatness of what they do. Therein lies the mystery and the beauty of the Offering: it is the mission that was entrusted to us, and we, in turn, need to trust it.