Chop wood, carry water.

The days when I come in the house mid-afternoon, hot and sweaty from working outside, and feel desperately ready for a warm shower are the best ones.   These days my time is spent between reading an incredible book on Kabbalah and performing chores and manual labor around the house.  It's all about balance, isn't it?  Feed your spirit, feed your body.  Become enlightened, think about it while you muck out the chicken coop.  I believe this is the natural balance of things, and that if the whole world ran like this it would be a better place.

Perhaps that was the idea behind the Kibbutz -- the farms in Israel so many of my friends sojourned to work on in the '70's and '80's.  Most went to make a pilgrimage to their ancestral lands and practice their Hebrew. But for many of them, their time working the land in The Holy Land was disappointing, because it was a mostly secular task.  Or nationalistic.  One friend was handed an Uzi on his first day in the field and told how to shoot in the direction of the hills where grenades were regularly launched from.  One has to defend oneself, it's true, but if its spiritual growth you're seeking, shooting at people probably doesn't help advance your understanding much.

But up here on our little hill, I can read the words of the sage rabbis and then go outside and prune a fruit tree or muck some chicken poop while I think about it.  It's a good way to really absorb what you're reading, and think about how it applies to your own life.

The buddhists have a phrase which sums it up nicely:  Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.  After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.

That says it perfectly.