Rev. Clairissa digs a little deeper into the meaning of the well-known saying “Chop Wood, Carry Water,” which is attributed to the eighth-century Chinese Zen Buddhist practitioner Layman Pang (740-808), in a poem he composed and recited for a master in our ancestral lineage. She looks at how a willingness to roll up our sleeves and get to work can serve us well as we practice Zen, encouraging us all to continue to “persevere brightly.”