THE HOLY
SACRAMENT
OF WORK
AWAITS
OUR FULL
PARTICIPATION.
Take taxi drivers. They could put in their hours, transport
their clients from point A to point B, and collect their money
and go home. But there’s something else taxi drivers could do.
Familiarizing themselves with the history and culture of their
cities, they could give useful, interesting information to out
of town clients. Juice and coffee could be served to create an
interactive atmosphere. (No charge for the business solutions, all
you taxi drivers.)
The point is, don’t let work become banal, find fulfillment in it.
In practically every occupation under the sun, this rule applies.
Shift workers, take note of social ills around you. Address them.
Alert your family and friends. Homemakers, through your
nurture provide a basis for your children to become thriving
adults. Your influence is arguably further-reaching than that of
any other occupation.
Myth #3: Discussing, emoting, and theorizing are
superior to work as a means of solving problems.
Usually our minds are most productive when our bodies are also
productive. Many relational and personal impasses are waiting to
be resolved through work. Think about it, work often delivers on
some of psychology’s main selling points. It improves self-image.
It gives solidarity and empathy to people as they work together.
And the satisfaction upon completion of good work releases
endorphins to combat depression. Work is a problem-solver and
an immensely underrated one at that.
Myth #4: Work is a result of the Fall. I have work that you
don’t know about. Those are the words of Jesus. And what charge
did God give Adam and Eve, before the Fall? The gist was to go
and work in his creation. Maybe the tired hymns like “We’ll Work
till Jesus Comes” have it all wrong. Maybe the work we do now
is only a beginning, a foreshadowing of the work we’ll do in his
restored world.
Myth#5: Education is purely about helping us make a
living, not for equipping us to enjoy our work. In many
cases, the more widely read you are, the higher the standard of
excellence you will bring to your work. The bigger your world is,
the more you will notice and delight in the finer points of your
job. When elementary school students are faced with a difficult
assignment, they often ask the following question: when will I
use it in real life? Frankly, it probably won’t be a r \]Z\