Do Work, Son

Okay, let's try this again. I just finished my biweekly coffee date with my friend Nate, and a conversation which ran the gamut from concerns with short-term mission trips to classical music. We sat in a hipster coffee shop (or "shoppe", if that's your cup of tea, as it were), the ideal location for rambling discourse among friends. This place is as leisure-filled as it gets (although a number of students are working on finals here), yet we always end up talking about Work. At this point in life, that's understandable – our jobs command 5/7 of our respective weeks, unlike the part-time work which was conversationally marginal in my school days. Anyway, I've been meditating on what Godly work looks like – not a Godly economy per se, nor even the robust Christian sense of vocation which my college went great lengths to promote in us impressionable, starry-eyed youngsters.

A few weeks ago, while reading “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe for my friends' book club, it occurred to me that not only the character of work, but also its very purpose in our lives has change in the wake of modern industrial capitalism. Whereas we have a national unemployment level approaching 10%, the very term “unemployment” would be incomprehensible in Achebe's small African village, because there is always work to be done. I imagine that the meaning of 2 Thessalonians 3:10 ("If a man will not work, he shall not eat”) seems to have changed with the coming of the Pilgrims to America: in Biblical times, it was most likely a simple matter of fact that a failure to sow or harvest would spell disaster for a person and his loved ones. But that assumed there was always work to be done – and in a semi-agrarian society like Israel, work would have abounded. Fast-forward 2000 years, where all our material needs and desires can be met...if only we have a *job*. However, the most popular refrain promising to save us from economic despair is “job-creation”. This would have sounded ridiculous in ancient times, because any work that was worth undertaking already existed. I plan to study this further.

In the meantime, I'd like to talk about the mundane rituals of everyday *work*, in and outside my job. Brother Lawrence was a 17th Century French monk who joined the brotherhood because of his acute clumsiness. His understanding of work, or “common business”, was characterized by a profoundly simple principle: every task, no matter how significant, should be done consciously for the glory of God. He spent his days in prayer – not quietly meditating, but actively enjoying God's presence while he cooked and cleaned.

I've heard others, especially my fiancee, referring to an “economy of abundance” as opposed to the prevailing capitalist economy of scarcity. But I only learned recently that this is marked not by naivete as to the material state before us, but instead by a *thanksgiving* for whatever we've been blessed with, regardless of its relative importance. I was reminded of this last night when I finally reached my apartment in a chilly evening (it snowed shortly thereafter) and soon found myself praising God for the miracle of bathroom radiators. I want to live a life full of those thankful moments.

Zen Buddhism focuses on mindfulness, but the purpose of such focus and “at-hand-ness” is not to give each moment and task its due, but instead to lose oneself – not simply metaphorically, but letting go of one's consciousness as a drop in an ocean of nothingness. At least, that's what I've picked up from my cursory readings of D.T. Suzuki. I think Christians have a lot to learn from such mindfulness, but for drastically different purposes: our chief end in life and death is not to cease suffering, but to “glorify God, and to enjoy him forever” (as the Westminster Catechism would have it). Thus, mindfulness for a Christian looks less like forgetting my own conscious presence, and more like remembering God's presence in my life. I've tried to pursue this mindfulness in my day job while tearing out old floors, grouting tile and talking to the guys I work with (“coworkers” sounds a bit too forced a term for these good ol' boys). It's certainly hard to remember every single movement and thought as a potential act of thanksgiving and praise to the Almighty, a la the monastics such as Brother Lawrence. But I think it is vital to viewing work as more than getting by, more than making money, but instead as the task of responding to God's call (or “calling”, in the spiritual or vocational sense). It's important to remember in pursuing one's unique calling that no task is too small or great for us to accomplish in a spirit of gratitude and vigor. Now if only I can remember that when Monday rolls around...