Chapter 27 religion

An old priest said, please tell us about religion. He said: Isn't that what I said today? Is religion not all deeds and all reflections, And those that are neither acts nor reflections, but a wonder and surprise that pour into the heart as hands hew a stone or fondle a loom? Who can separate his ideas from his actions, or his beliefs from his duties? Who can lay his time before him and say, "This is God's and that is mine; this is my mind and that is my body?" All your time is wings that flap in the sky, from one self to the other. He who wears morality as his best clothes is better off naked.

Wind and sun do not break their skin. He who rules his conduct ethically imprisons his own singing bird in a cage. The freest song cannot come from chains and bars. He who now worships a window that is opened and closed has not yet visited the house of his soul, the house of which The windows are always open from dawn to dawn. Your daily life is your temple and your religion. Clear into it with all of you. With a rake and a furnace, a rod and a harp. Take with you the usual things you make out of need or love. For in piety you cannot rise higher than your achievements, nor fall lower than your failures.

Bring everyone into it. For in worship you cannot soar higher than their hopes, nor lower yourselves than their disappointments. If you want to know God, don't be a riddle solver. Look around and you will find him playing with your children. Look up to the sky, and you will see him walking in the clouds, reaching out in the lightning, and descending in the rain. You will see him smiling among the flowers and waving at the trees.