Just read this poem on a Parker Palmer blog ...
He writes about how much his work matters; how hard he is still working.
But how much it matters, too, that we understand we are not only our work.
We are something deeper, something richer, and more lasting
than just what we produce.
"Even in sleep our life will shine," writes poet Lynn Ungar.
What if we really believed that?
I think if I really believed that, I would give myself permission to sleep more.
I think I'll start tonight.
Camas Lilies
by Lynn Ungar
Consider the lilies of the field,
the blue banks of camas opening
into acres of sky along the road.
Would the longing to lie down
and be washed by that beauty
abate if you knew their usefulness,
how the native ground their bulbs
for flour, how the settlers' hogs
uprooted them, grunting in gleeful
oblivion as the flowers fell?
And you—what of your rushed
and useful life? Imagine setting it all down—
papers, plans, appointments, everything—
leaving only a note: "Gone
to the fields to be lovely. Be back
when I'm through blooming."
Even now, unneeded and uneaten,
the camas lilies gaze out above the grass
from their tender blue eyes.
Even in sleep your life will shine.
Make no mistake. Of course
your work will always matter.
Yet Solomon in all his glory
was not arrayed like one of these.