The prayer of the farmer kneeling in his field to weed it, the prayer of the rower kneeling with the stroke of his oar, are true prayers heard throughout nature.
Interpretation
Work and dedication to one's craft can be seen as a form of prayer, connecting us with nature.
Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that the sincere efforts of individuals, whether in farming or rowing, reflect a spiritual connection to nature. This perspective elevates everyday tasks to an act of devotion, illustrating that true prayers are not just spoken but manifested through the diligence and reverence applied in physical work.
In practice
In a speech about sustainable farming, one might quote Emerson to highlight the connection between labor and spirituality.
It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.
Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.
Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.
The world belongs to the energetic.
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
Oh, a dainty plant is the ivy green, That creepeth o'er ruins old! Of right choice food are his meals, I ween, In his cell so lone and cold. Creeping where no life is seen, A rare old plant is the ivy green.
The entire North Polar ice cap is disappearing before our very eyes. It's been the size of the continental United States for the last 3 million years and now 40 percent is gone and the rest of it is going.
The highest treason, the meanest treason, is to deny the holiness of this little blue planet on which we journey through the cold void of space.
Much of our waste problem is to be accounted for by the intentional flimsiness and unrepairability of the labor-savers and gadgets that we have become addicted to.
Water is the best of all things.
How beautiful is the rain!_x000D_ _x000D_ After the dust and the heat,_x000D_ _x000D_ In the broad and fiery street,_x000D_ _x000D_ In the narrow lane,_x000D_ _x000D_ How beautiful is the rain!
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