Minister: Honor men and women for their extravagance, for the unneeded things that they do.
Men: The fullness of humanity is not only in its labors.
Women: We are human not only to survive..
Minister: Honor humanity for the hours it wastes in play, turning its occupations into make-believe, engaging in mock contests, to win formal victories.
Men: Consider our thinking to choice and comprehension, but look also to our reverie, to our dreams and poems.
Women: Look upon the acts of our hands, but listen also to the story-telling on our lips, for out of our stories are born the acts we will do tomorrow.
Minister: Counsel men and women to weary their bodies in toil, but also to run and leap and turn themselves in dancing.
Men: We live our own lives, but we also act out the make-believe of other lives in our theaters.
Women: Out of our joy and sorrow, we create a style of laughter and tears.
Men: We build homes for shelter, and also temples to present our visions and our gratitude.
Women: We leave off laboring every day, to set aside time for our festivals.
Men: We recount the tales of our ancestors, and their sacrifices.
Women: We celebrate those who would have lived their lives in reason, but were made to die for the sake of truth.
Minister: The people at times turn from struggle, from failure, from piecemeal victories, to warm their purpose and courage before the dreams of a better world.
Men: We assemble to read poems and sing hymns to make our inner faces vivid on the air through our rituals.
Women: The telling and the doing are both needed to our self and its realization.
Minister: The sounds we waste in music, the strength we waste in dancing, is a profligacy to make us rich instead of poor.
Men: Our arts are our unusual acts of happiness and grief,
Women: Their unreality gives reality to the real, and paints moods and colors upon our daytime world.
All: Honor men and women for their extravagances, sometimes what they waste in singing is all that they manage to save.
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