There was once a young boy who wanted to give his teacher a gift.
The boy lived in a village many miles from the sea. His teacher once told him that his greatest desire in the world was to see the ocean before he died. But it was a difficult journey of many days and he was getting too old to walk so far. He began to fear that his wish would never be fulfilled.
The young boy decided that if the teacher could not come to the ocean he would bring the ocean to the teacher. The next day he set out on foot towards the coast. After many days travel over difficult terrain he at last arrived on the shore with the vast sweep of the ocean laid out before him.
He took only a moment to marvel at the spectacle and then remembered why he was here. He took an empty bottle out of his pack, filled it with water from the ocean, carefully sealed it and put it back in his pack.
He then began the long journey home. After many more days of equally difficult travel he at last returned to his village and presented his teacher with his gift.
“The ocean,” he explained, “trapped in a bottle.”
The teacher thanked him profusely but chided him saying, “it was not necessary for you to make such a long difficult journey to bring me this gift.”
“But teacher,” the boy responded, “the journey was part of the gift.”
We are all pilgrims on the road to Heaven. We do not live for the here and now, we live for the future. We are not content with what is, but struggle to achieve what should be and what will be. As pilgrims on this earth we look to the future. Earth is not Heaven, it is the path to Heaven. We are all on a journey to make our lives a work of art, a gift to give back to God, the journey is part of that gift.