One of the most demanding, but often overlooked, dimensions of the creation story is that
when creation was finished, it wasn’t really finished at all. Instead, God committed the rest of
the process to us. What humans do on this earth either continues creation or obstructs it. It
all depends on the way we look at life, the way we see our role in the ongoing creation of the
world.
Work is our contribution to creation. It relates us to the rest of the world. It fulfills our
responsibility to the future. God left us a world intact, a world with enough for everyone. The
contemplative question of the time is, What kind of world are we leaving to those who come
after us? The contemplative sets out to shape the world in the image of God. Order,
cleanliness, care of the environment bring the Glory of God into the stuff of the moment, the
character of the little piece of the planet for which we are responsible.
The ideal state, the contemplative knows, is not to avoid work. The first thing Genesis
requires of Adam and Eve is that they “till the garden and keep it.” They are, then,
commanded to work long before they sin. Work is not, in Judaeo-Christian tradition,
punishment for sin. Work is the mark of the conscientiously human. We do not live to
outgrow work. We live to work well, to work with purpose, to work with honesty and quality
and artistry. The floors the contemplative mops have never been better mopped. The
potatoes the contemplative grows do not damage the soil under the pretense of developing
it. The machines a contemplative designs and builds are not created to destroy life but to
make it more possible for everyone. The people the contemplative serves get all the care
that God has given us.
The contemplative is overcome by the notion of “tilling the garden and keeping it.” Work
does not distract us from God. It brings the reign of God closer than it was before we came.
Work doesn’t take us away from God. It continues the work of God through us. Work is the
priesthood of the human race. It turns the ordinary into the grandeur of God.
To be a real contemplative and no shaman of the airy-fairy, I must work as if the
preservation of the world depends on what I am doing in this small, otherwise insignificant
space I call my life.
–from Illuminated Life
by Joan Chittister
when creation was finished, it wasn’t really finished at all. Instead, God committed the rest of
the process to us. What humans do on this earth either continues creation or obstructs it. It
all depends on the way we look at life, the way we see our role in the ongoing creation of the
world.
Work is our contribution to creation. It relates us to the rest of the world. It fulfills our
responsibility to the future. God left us a world intact, a world with enough for everyone. The
contemplative question of the time is, What kind of world are we leaving to those who come
after us? The contemplative sets out to shape the world in the image of God. Order,
cleanliness, care of the environment bring the Glory of God into the stuff of the moment, the
character of the little piece of the planet for which we are responsible.
The ideal state, the contemplative knows, is not to avoid work. The first thing Genesis
requires of Adam and Eve is that they “till the garden and keep it.” They are, then,
commanded to work long before they sin. Work is not, in Judaeo-Christian tradition,
punishment for sin. Work is the mark of the conscientiously human. We do not live to
outgrow work. We live to work well, to work with purpose, to work with honesty and quality
and artistry. The floors the contemplative mops have never been better mopped. The
potatoes the contemplative grows do not damage the soil under the pretense of developing
it. The machines a contemplative designs and builds are not created to destroy life but to
make it more possible for everyone. The people the contemplative serves get all the care
that God has given us.
The contemplative is overcome by the notion of “tilling the garden and keeping it.” Work
does not distract us from God. It brings the reign of God closer than it was before we came.
Work doesn’t take us away from God. It continues the work of God through us. Work is the
priesthood of the human race. It turns the ordinary into the grandeur of God.
To be a real contemplative and no shaman of the airy-fairy, I must work as if the
preservation of the world depends on what I am doing in this small, otherwise insignificant
space I call my life.
–from Illuminated Life
by Joan Chittister
LABOR DAY MESSAGE
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