work

A Beautiful Work

October 28, 2011 By heather 1 Comment

Work–we think of deadlines and irritable, irritated bosses. We think of to-do lists and meaningless tasks. We think of fatigue and boredom and tediousness.

Terms of the Curse–painful toil, thorns and thistles, sweat of your brow.

But, oh, Death, where is thy sting?

Were you raised from death with Christ? Whatever your work is, do it gladly.

And so, with furious dancing, I mop the kitchen floor. With loving hand I stir the butternut apple soup. With joy I turn to my latest editing project.

I think of the little hands and feet that cross the floors, the tongues that taste the soup, the eyes that read the essay. The mop, the pot, the computer–means of beauty and truth and renewal.

For in this work, I live out my redemption.

Filed Under: work

Mike Rowe, of Dirty Jobs fame, addressed the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee of Congress the other day on the subject of the workforce. In his speech, he urged Congress to promote more skilled trades. (You can view the YouTube video of it here.)

This has been a subject on my mind lately. Chris and I have been researching trust funds for Keegan’s college education. But what if he doesn’t want to go to college? What if Keegan wants to be a janitor or a garbageman–sorry, sanitation specialist–or a mechanic?

This came up again in book club the other night. In the book we read, This Is Just Exactly Like You by Drew Perry (a book I’d recommend, by the way), the protagonist’s wife gets frustrated with him for his apparent lack of ambition. He had a job teaching English at a local college. When he lost that job (for nefarious reasons, granted), he started moving mulch. Instead of the more respected job of teaching English, he’s content with his mulch business.

Why do we look down on folks such as this protagonist? Why do we denigrate them in society and consider them less than? Should ambition be a virtue?

A few years back, I read an article about college grads and their college debt. Many of the grads could not get jobs that adequately support their debt. I fear that in our good intention to give everyone the right to go to college, we’ve made it a requirement for respect in our society. Going to college is no longer about preparing for a specific career. It’s a right of passage. Because it’s not just a right but an expectation now, we have heavy and unnecessary financial burdens. The workforce can’t support the number of students graduating with the expectation of business and executive positions.

In addition, we have students going to college who perhaps shouldn’t be. They’d be better suited for skilled labor, but because we look down on skilled labor, they aspire to something “better.” Because of this, colleges have had to tailor their education for students whose minds excel in skills other than calculus or literature or political science. Also, in order to set oneself apart for the executive and professional jobs, one most go beyond the undergraduate experience (which is more about experience than education) and get a master’s degree (at least).

But what bothers me the most is how our society views those who don’t have a bachelor’s degree: in a word, negatively. See also ignorant and incapable. Worse, our churches have adopted this stance. When’s the last time you saw a janitor on an elder board? (And don’t get me started on the gender issues still haunting us: a woman married to a well-to-do businessman can get away without having a bachelor’s degree and still garner respect but the vice versa isn’t true. In this case, the men have it harder, although it stems from a lowered expectation on women. But that’s a different rant for a different day.)

Our churches, like the secular society, views higher education and professional jobs as better than and as a result encourages our high schoolers to pursue these careers instead of technical professions. Shop class is considered the easy A rather than a place to develop a specific (and, to my mind, difficult) skill set that prepares students talented in this area for the workforce.

While professional careers–look at the name even! as if skilled labor jobs aren’t professional! let’s say executive instead–while executive careers are a good thing, they are not intrinsically better than skilled labor jobs. We should encourage teenagers to pursue whichever best suits their talents. In so doing (and here’s the heart of the matter), we should teach them that it’s about how you do a job more than what job you do. It’s not about a more excellent job. It’s about doing a job more excellently.

This differs from ambition because ambition is about ego. My generation believes that not only can we be president (of a company, if not the country), but that if we aren’t, we’re failing. We’re insignificant.

Ah, to be significant. For God, of course. I want to be significant for him.

Right. That’s what it’s about. But what if God gets more glory from me being a minion than a CEO? Am I okay with that? After all, it’s about his glory, not mine.

I won’t even go into how our obsession with significance (taught in the churches!) leads to problems in the family. Yet another rant . . .

Or how our obsession with “calling” (rather than making sound decisions with wisdom) rarely leads to a job as a secretary but instead leads to higher up corporate positions. (And the rants accumulate.)

So what if Keegan wants to wash windows for a living? I’ll tell him to make those windows sparkle, to perform his job cheerfully as unto the Lord, not unto men.

Filed Under: work Tagged With: ambition, career, Dirty Jobs, Mike Rowe, skilled labor, work

24601

March 27, 2008 By heather 13 Comments

I saw this meme lurking around the High Calling Blog collection (a fun network of people that I recommend you check out if you haven’t already) but thought, what odd job have I done? I skipped it. Then Brandon tagged me, and I can’t very well go ignoring good tags now, can I? Which means I’m doing a meme and combining it with some unformed thoughts rattling around in my head about my job now. First the rules (because you can’t have a game without rules–I tried once, and while it was fun for me, no one else wanted to play again):

1. Write about the Strangest Job I Ever Had and tell what I learned from it.

2. Link to other “Lessons from Odd Jobs” posts.

3. Tag my post “Lessons from Odd Jobs”.

4. Tag other bloggers, in or out of the HC network. (I tag Michelle, Tanya, and Pam because they’re three good story-tellers.)

5. Link back to the Lessons from Odd Jobs page and and email this month’s host at “Marcus AT highcallingblogs DOT com”.

As I said, I’ve never had an odd job. I’ve been a janitor, a worship administrator, a women’s ministry intern, a pharmaceutical tech, a music librarian, a medical receptionist, and a musician. I’ve babysat, edited, taught flute and piano lessons, played odd gigs at odd places, composed, and entered mass amounts of data. I’ve learned that author’s are touchy, the floor of a man’s bathroom is always sticky, and certain pills smell good.

But the strangest job I’ve ever had: a writer.

Who else gets away with hearing voices in their heads? Who else can zone out of conversations while creating alternate realities and have a legitimate excuse?

This brings me to the tweaking part of the meme. The wilderness part. You guys were with me as I wrote about becoming me, the imaginative theologian who loves the arts. It’s who I am. I have visions of the Church being a patron of the arts, of incarnating Christ through art, of being a beacon of creativity. I have a desire to help shepherd and guide artists and lead them in spiritual formation. Something (or Someone, I should say) pushes me to do more with my writing, to work harder, to be excellence (by the way, there’s a good article, The Habit of Excellence, up at The High Calling this week), to embody the sufferings and the hope of resurrection.

I’m an artist.

Or am I?

I’m a mediocre musician and a rookie writer. Am I an artist?

I’m in a place of stripping and purging. I prayed for insignificance that God would strip away my pride.

And He’s answering it.

I read last night in Dark Night of the Soulthat in the purging process, there’s a time when the soul feels rejected by God.

I’m in that process. Some of it, I suspect, is God telling me, No, that’s not what I have for you when I take on jobs impetuously. Some of it is an answer to that prayer for insignificance. Some of it, I don’t understand.

I feel alone. I feel useless. I’ve been in this wilderness for four years. God reveals things now and again, like oases. A couple years ago, I started writing. I thought, now we’re getting somewhere!

Only I’m not anywhere.

It’s not that I don’t love my job and my life. I teach flute and piano. I spend most of the day writing. And I’m heading up a new group blog for bible.org (more on that later). I love my job(s).

But I wonder if God loves them. If He loves them, why doesn’t He use them? If He loves them, why doesn’t He give me that bit of encouragement when I ask for it?

So the oddest part of my odd job: watching everything be stripped away.

I can’t help but think of the part in the Maundy Thursday service when the priests stripped the altar. Christ’s presence gone (metaphorically speaking).

I can’t help but think of Mary meeting Christ in the garden, of the travelers meeting Christ on the road to Emmaus, of the disciples meeting Christ in the locked room.

I warned you that these thoughts are unformed, swimming around without a dock. Next week, I’m going to the symposium, Transforming Culture: A Vision for the Church and the Arts. I’m looking forward to refreshment. I’m looking forward to just being who I am, an imaginative theologian, and perhaps, an artist.

My soul belongs to God, I know
I made that bargain long ago
He gave me hope when hope was gone
He gave me strength to journey on

Who am I?
I’m 24601!

Filed Under: art, imagination, imaginative theologian, meme, ministry, music, work, writing

Pursuit of Happiness

October 16, 2007 By heather Leave a Comment

Is it a God-given right as our handy-dandy Declaration of Independence claims?

I struggle with this question.

On
the one hand, let’s be honest, I pursue it everyday. Who doesn’t want
to be happy? If you pursue a bad state of being, we call you a
masochist and give you happy drugs.

On the other hand,
what would Job say? After everything was taken away from him and he sat
in ashes in mourning demanding an answer from God? I guess the very
nature of the fact that Job demanded an answer shows that he believed
he had the right to be happy–after all, he lived a righteous life. So
the appropriate question would be, what would God say? God swept in and
said, Where were you when I created everything? You have no right.

But
on the other hand, a piece of the fruit of the Spirit is joy, which we
are called to practice. Now, before you tell me, well, there you have
it. Joy and happiness are two completely different things, let me say,
I don’t think so. I think we’ve made them two different things to say
why one is okay and one is not okay. But look, first of all, at the
Merriam-Webster definition:

2 a: a state of well-being and contentment : joy

The first definition, they tell you is obsolete, so we default to 2a.

And consider, second of all (or reverse the order, whichever), its use in the English translations of the Bible:

But the godly are happy; they rejoice before God and are overcome with joy.
(Psalm 68:3–The Hebrew uses two different words, although their roots
appear to be related.)
Happy
is the one who endures testing, because when he has proven to be
genuine, he will receive the crown of life that God promised to those
who love him.
(James 1:12–The Greek term is "blessed, happy, fortunate" and is the same one used in the beatitudes.)

Ah,
so here is the suffering, which is my problem. If we expect to suffer
(which Jesus told us we should) and we are to be happy/joyful, how does
that fit?

Here’s the thing: don’t we all know the answer? Yes, yes, we suffer and are to find our joy and hope in Christ. Absolutely.

Maybe
I’m trying to make this more difficult than it is, but is that the same
as pursuing happiness? So we should always be pursuing contentment in
Christ, right? We all know that. Paul told us that in Philippians: the
secret of being content–doing all things through the One who
strengthens us.

Okay, so let’s get down to my real reason
for all this babble (Merriam-Webster: 1 a: to talk enthusiastically or
excessively b: to utter meaningless or unintelligible sounds–thank
you). How do we know when to get out and when to endure through?

No trial has overtaken you that is not faced by others. 9 And God is faithful: He 10 will not let you be tried beyond what you are able to bear, 11 but with the trial will also provide a way out so that you may be able to endure it. 1 Corinthians 10:13

Well that’s about as much help as an employee at Wal-Mart (don’t even get me started on that!). Way out or endure it? Which one, Paul? Make up your mind!

How
do you know when to quit the miserable job and find a new one? How do
you know when to leave a ministry that seems to be going nowhere?

And
then there’s the flip side. Pursuing happiness: pursuing a state of
contentment. Of course, our contentment in God is the basis. But what
about pursuing a felicitous situation? Is it okay to save up for a new
book or that HDTV or retirement or a dress or an iPod? In Acts 2, the
believers basically lived as communists (in its true sense, not in the
Lenin sense), or in hippie communes. They put all they had together, as
one. Is that descriptive or prescriptive? I’m assuming it’s
descriptive, but even if it is, is it a situation we should work
towards today? And, if so, how far do we take that? Believers in my
suburbs? In the nation? In Africa and Guatemala and the nations?

These
are hard questions for me. They affect everything: what I do with my
time (work and ministry) and what I do with my money. And
relationships, come to think about it.

Filed Under: contentment, finances, happiness, joy, peace, work

What's My Line Again?

August 16, 2007 By heather Leave a Comment

What constitutes work? Is it the paycheck? The sweat on your brow? Does it allude to a dislike of the task?

I struggle with this question because of my current situation. I work, right? I teach flute and piano lessons. I write. I speak. But between the part-time music teaching, the speaking gigs, and the odd writing or editing jobs (and when I saw odd, I mean odd), I can have as much to write off in taxes as I claim in income.

Which makes me feel like I don’t work.

Merriam-Webster had 10 answers with work used as a transitive verb, most with their a’s and b’s and c’s, plus 7 more for the intransitive use. And then there are the definitions of work as a noun.

Here’s the number 1 answer for work used intransitively:

1 a : to exert oneself physically or mentally especially in sustained effort for a purpose or under compulsion or necessity b : to perform or carry through a task requiring sustained effort or continuous repeated operations c : to perform work or fulfill duties regularly for wages or salary

"A" is certainly true. I exert myself. There are sustained efforts and a purpose, and yes, under compulsion, I’d even say in the sense of a writer has to write. "B" is true as well. I continuously repeat the operation of typing the keys or telling my students to sit up straight, curve their fingers, focus their embouchure. "C"–well, that’s the one I get stuck on. My music teaching – check. My speaking – mostly yes. My writing – huh? It’s rare at this stage in the game that I get paid for doing what I do. I hope someday I’ll get paid for it, not because the paycheck allures me but because that means getting to the next stage, a regular (keyword) paycheck for writing.

In the Bible, the English word "work" is used approximately 350 times. Occupation, service, workmanship; God’s work in creation, a craftsman’s work on the temple, Jacob’s work for Laban, the Proverbs 31 Woman’s work (which is plenty–have you read everything she does? makes me want to take a nap), skillful work, and work to be enjoyed (according to the author of Ecclesiastes), the good work that Christians are to do–the work which God has prepared for us and which is coupled with love, the work that God the Creator and Redeemer does inside of us, the work that puts food on our tables.

I don’t want to make too many crosses here, say that they are all related. But a few of these struck me, like the craftsman’s work on the temple or the songwriter’s work because in that sense, my writing is work. Or the work to be enjoyed because yes, I enjoy my work, all of it. Or the good work that Christians are to do. What does that have to do with occupation?

That work is more than occupation because it infiltrates all of our lives, our care of our families, our interactions with our neighbors, our giving to the poor. But it is part of our occupation in that our occupation is a work of the Lord and to the Lord, no matter what man sees in it, no matter if man claims it lowly, like he may a janitor’s position (and let me tell you from experience, that is some hard work there), or if man claims it worthy of millions of dollars, like a CEO of Microsoft. Or if man claims it noble but unworthy of mucho money, like the artist. No matter, it is worthy to be used by God.

So do I work? 2 out of 3 dentists say yes, and that’s good enough for me.

Filed Under: work, writing