Rabbit: What are you doing, Hare?
Hare: Nothing much, it seems.
Rabbit: Ah, the dolce far niente again. It must be your modus vivendi.
Hare: There’s nothing like a mixture of languages to get me going. So what are you doing?
Rabbit: Well, it’s harvest season. I’m busy preparing for winter. Every day there seems more to do. I wish my life were less hectic.
Hare: What do you mean?
Rabbit: Such stress! Others make such demands on my time, and I cannot accomplish everything — sometimes anything — I set out to do. I need more time and more energy.
Hare: I know you’re clever. What tricks have you found to make better use of your time?
Rabbit: A great many! I make lists, I set goals, I sleep less. Still, by early evening, I feel exhausted and just eat myself to sleep. It angers me to see lazier animals, who lie around as if sleeping with their eyes open, so to speak.
Hare: That sounds unhealthy.
Rabbit: What can I do? More to the point, what do you do? You always seem very calm. Do you read poetry, or pray to an unknown god?
Hare: These are good things. My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky ….
Rabbit: What are you talking about?
Hare: Not my words; someone else’s. He was excited to see such a sight that nature gave him, and was thankful for it.
Rabbit: I sense a lesson here somewhere.
Hare: No lesson: it’s just an observation. Haven’t you noticed how feeling grateful makes you feel more alive? Gratitude seems related to grace: it answers to grace, giving thanks for an outside gift —
Rabbit: Enough — I need to run —
Hare: — and thought itself imagines the rainbow as a heavenly sign. Thinking realizes its fullest scope when it takes form as a gift.
Rabbit, where are you?
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