Joyous in Our Work
April 12, 2015
by Penny Nash
Read
Reflect
I think this bee loves its work, don’t you? To live and move among such beauty and such an excess of goodness – literally to be covered in goodness like pollen – must be like heaven. The other day at the botanical garden I spent several minutes watching this bee flat out, and joyously, roll around in something that is life-giving, both to it and to the world around it. This is probably why so many of us feel closer to God outdoors than any other place. We can see God’s generosity. We can marvel at God’s creativity, at the wondrousness of how things grow. We remember Jesus talking about the lilies of the field, that not even Solomon in all his glory is clothed as one of these.
But loving our own work, seeing God’s love of beauty and lavishness in our offices and homes? That’s harder. When I am doing the laundry or mopping the floors or writing up responsibilities for church services and attending to way too many emails, I am not luxuriating in goodness like this bee. If I am covered with anything, it is sweat and maybe ink from the toner cartridge. I sometimes have a hard time connecting God’s generosity with my work.
But it precisely in these Fifty Days that we are called to be attentive to God’s generosity, and to give thanks for that generosity and to spread it around. We are called to pollinate the world with God’s love and goodness, if you will; to show the world that God’s love knows no bounds and washes over all of us, giving us new life. And so let us go forth, luxuriating in God’s goodness, and making even our work a thing of wondrous beauty.
Respond
Sit down with a pen and paper today and make a list of ways we can be joyous at work so that we communicate God’s love to those around us.
Christopher Engle Barnhart
Being retired from my professional life experiences (work), I now have time to experience working on my time and being responsible to myself rather than some manager looking over my shoulder. My time is my time or better put my time is God’s time. I love to work outside cleaning up the leaves and branches left from fall and winters weather. I love putting them on the burn piles and burning the debris. I love the small construction project I have set for my self such as completing rock walls as reinforcement to garden beds and building stairways and stair steps from one level to another. I love taking the small rocks of which we have many and tosing them onto a rock pile around the pine trees. I call this my Zen rock pile for I tose them and let them fall where they may. In the past years we have prepares the garden soil for planting our vegetable garden this time of year but because of the drought here in California we are not able to do this because we a restricted on our water use.
Lucy Porter
A rotten cold has me down. I am feeling somewhat low on “low Sunday”. But the tax forms were mailed on Friday (5 days ahead of time!) and I do feel better than I did a couple of days ago. I have been asked to do a program on healing prayer for the United Methodist Women on Tuesday. My husband will play the piano for hymn singing and participate in a skit. What a joy it will be to share my experience and skill in healing prayer with this great group of women! What a joy to be able to step in when the previously scheduled program leader had to cancel! My program was originally supposed to be later in the spring, but I’m glad to do it now. Thank you, God!
Mrs. Jan Curtis
The bee in the pollen made me think of Brother Lawrence and his pots and pans. Thank you!
Jan