A tradition in my home faith community is to acknowledge Saturday evening as the vigil of the Lord's Day, beginning with a beautiful Christian adaptation of the traditional Jewish Sabbath ceremony. One line is ringing in my head today - offering God thanks for the "joy that has come to us out of our work" during the past week.

I often feel a bit rueful when I hear it. The line makes me think of the swinging of an ax or hammer, putting up preserves, painting a house, toting that barge and lifting that bale on a brisk autumn day where you can do a solid something with tangible results, take a deep satisfied breath, and brush the sawdust off your hands with a sigh of satisfaction.

What is the Work from which I rest on the Lord's Day? I talk to people, hunch over my computer, sit in meetings, develop that flat left ear from lengthy phone conversations, encourage, write and rewrite, grouse, snack and sit.

I'm not sure what to think or say about that. It doesn't feel virtuous. I suppose it's worthwhile, though the connection between work in Corporate American and doing genuine good seems tenuous at best sometimes.

Any thoughts?

1 Comment

1. TS on 1:34 PM

   No one asks better questions than you Roz! I would recommend "Business as a Calling: Work and the Examined Life" by Michael Novak. I bought it last year but shamefully haven't read it yet. If you do, you could help both of us. :~)