Tools of the trade

Your mind will be full of numbers

And your mouth of foreign words

Pythagoras and algebra,

Nouns, adjectives and verbs

Your eyes will scale the volumes

Of human knowledge and intellect

Your hands will know the weariness

Of assayed essays to inspect

Your feet may know the tempo

Of the clock and it's demands

Your back, the weight of pressures

And industry's circumstance

In all these things, remember

Let your heart remain unchanged

Save for the things the Lord himself

Undertakes to rearrange

Your value was predetermined

And cannot be added to

Resumes and accolades

Are not the sum of you

Things like these do have their use

This much must be conceded

As a spade in the farmer's hands

Has use to till the land that's seeded

But spades and rakes cannot suffice

When a meal is in demand

The eternal soul can ne'er feast

On scraps from finite lands

Our devices are often thought to be

The ends and not the means

We idolize the hills we climb

And the accomplishments so gleaned

Yet wonder is a mighty force

We all possess at birth

Unto a world that trades for trinkets

Such things of priceless worth

"I count it all as loss" 'twas said

About that once thought as gain

By one who had much more than most

And had nothing all the same

"that I may gain Christ", he said

Who saw the truth behind

The veil that shimmers in the winds

Of shifting trades and trends and times

We once were told to be like these,

The children in our midst

They who see with sight unshielded

Those things aged eyes have missed:

The face of God, the form of Heaven

The Holy waiting in the wings

A world that is not bound by time

And countless, wondrous other things

The thought of it is daunting:

The learning we now possess

Though strive we might to grasp it

Will fail us nonetheless

The thought of it is humbling:

The wisest teachers you may meet

Are they who hear the voice of God

While blowing bubbles at your feet