Web Theologian

Throughout most of history and even in most of the world today people have not had the luxury to pursue passion and meaning in work with the same means that we do in modern society. The “sticky wicket”, to use the British slang, is that theologians believe that work was pre-ordained as part of creation. There was a calling or charge to order the world and multiply both parts of this mean work.

Mike Rowe quote on Education, Jobs and Debt.

So can this calling or charge handle the weight we put into it for our own personal passions? Is it even the correct vessel for these dreams to be worked out. This is extremely complicated to answer. Work will leave you short if a your value is found in it because there will always be challenges, in the worst case you have no capacity for dreams as you are oppressed and marginalized and work is mere done for survival. Any situation like this should be spoken and acted against as it destroys the dignity of other people.

It is about a search, too, for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying. Perhaps immortality, too, is part of the quest. To be remembered was the wish, spoken and unspoken, of the heroes and heroines of this book.  – Studs Terkel

For most of us it is about the search, ideally coming to work with the knowledge of who we are and what we are created to be. Now that knowledge is evolving and through work we are given opportunity to fail and grow, all while working out a more clear image of who we are hopefully growing more fully human…though I know sometimes the opposite is sadly the case.

These thoughts are inspired by the great blog, brainpickings, if you are not reading it yet you should. I just reserved the book Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do by Studs Terkel. There may be more from on this topic once I get my hands on the book.

Remember today that you and those around you are seeking, we are seeking for a lot in our work. There is the desire to provide financially but also a world just as significant in our development as people that has to do with desire, dreams, and a will for the heroic.