Reflection
The workplace is as good a school for spirituality as a monastery. Our work, our homes, our neighborhoods, our public meeting places, our voting booths, our classrooms – all are conducive to the practice of spirituality. Our turf, our stuff, however cluttered and discombobulated, are holy ground. The ordinary hassles of daily living are rich soil in which to grow and bloom.
Rich Heffern
Prayer
May the works of my hands sing praise.
Action
We are all working in one way or another. Consider the work that you do. How do you feel about it? Does it give you energy, satisfaction, a sense of contribution to the whole? Is it an integral part of your life? If it is a burden and a chore? What can you do to make it and see it as a positive part of your adult spirituality?
Suggested Reading
May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us; establish the work of our hands for us— yes, establish the work of our hands.
Psalms 90:17
Do everything in love.
1 Corinthians 16:14
We collaborate with the creative work of God when, through our work, we cultivate and preserve creation; we participate, in the Spirit of Jesus, in his redemptive mission, when by our activity we give sustenance to our families and respond to the needs of our neighbor.
Pope Francis
At every moment God awaits us in the activity, the work to be done, which every moment brings. God is, in a sense, at the point of my pen, my pick, my paint-brush, my needle – and my heart and my thought. It is by carrying to its natural completion the stroke, the line, the stitch I am working on that I shall lay hold on that ultimate end towards which my will at its deepest levels tends.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
In developing a spirituality of work, I learn to trust beyond reason that good work will gain good things for the world, even when I don’t expect them and I can’t see them.
Joan Chittister
You can always love your work; your profession, at best, you can exercise.
Luciano Pavarotti
Each of us has something within us that needs to be expressed. It may be the desire to play an instrument, paint landscapes, climb mountains, or grow prize-winning chrysanthemums. Whatever that desire is, it comes from our heart and reflects our own unique gifts and abilities.
G. Jean Anderson
To seek out beauty in our work is to make a pilgrimage of our labors, to understand that the consummation of work lies not only in what we have done, but who we have become while accomplishing the task.
David Whyte
Spirit and work are linked among indigenous people because human work is viewed as an intensification of the work that Spirit does in nature.
Malidoma Some
Actions that lead to overwork, exhaustion, and burnout can’t praise and glory God. What God calls us to do we can do and do well. When we listen in silence to God’s voice and speak with our friends in trust we will know what we are called to do. We will do it with a grateful heart.
Henri Nouwen
Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth.
Shirley Chisholm
I slept and dreamt that life was joy
I woke and saw that life was service
I acted and behold! service was joy.
Rabindranath Tagore