Siddhartha Gautama (the one who came to Enlightenment and thus became known as the Buddha) said:
Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it.
I am a little confused at how this fits into a Buddhist worldview, but it sure does so for a Christian approach to life.
Social activist, contemplative and author, Dorothy Sayers knows the centrality of work in the Christian framework."Work is not, primarily, a thing one does to live, but the thing one lives to do." (For more on this amazing woman, click here.)
We are created to work… to work well… to work lovingly… to work carefully… to work as stewards who develop the creation around us. All that potential that has been downloaded into our wonderful world, it is our privilege to "tease it out" and by grace, move it to fullness.
Here is a beautiful thought (source unknown to me, although it is reminiscent of Martin Luther) that inspires me as I do this work.
If it falls your lot to be a streetsweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, like Shakespeare wrote poetry, like Beethoven composed music; sweep streets so well that all the host of Heaven and earth will have to pause and say,'Here lived a great streetsweeper, who swept his street well'.
We will spend an enormous part of our life working. How vital then, that we learn to do this work as "contemplatives in action." That is, those who discern the Presence, Work and Word of God in these contexts and respond fully.
So today… what is ONE THING you can do toward this end?
Brian K. Rice
Leadership ConneXtions International
www.lci.typepad.com
