Strange where life takes you isn’t it? On this particular Friday morning, I found myself in this particular French pastry shop: Paul, in downtown Georgetown. It was filled with more scrumptious and delicious breads, tarts, and cakes than you could imagine. I was there, strangely enough, to unsuccessfully drop an Ethernet cable from one wall to the ceiling to another wall. I’m pretty handy, but not that handy, apparently.
This is not a story about my unsuccessful attempt to drop a cable into their walls. It is rather a story about the common man (myself) finding a spark of joy, glistening in a corner shop during a long work day. For how many of you is this experience true? You drive to work, usually in horrible traffic, conditioned by your culture to expect the next eight hours to be uncomfortably dull and gruelling. Usually, you get what you expect. Rather, you receive what you ask for. If you ask for gruel, you will undoubtedly paint your world in that dim, grey light. This conditioning, combined with weekend gatherings with friends where the common groupthink of “How was work?” “Oh, you know, it pays the bills,” abounds without fail, makes for quite a strong barrier to any happiness between the hours of nine and five.
Even the most seasoned office bore, however, will find himself in the rare state of having a smile on his face at two o’clock in the afternoon from time to time. It may be caused by something as simple as cake for an office birthday. It may be a bouquet of flowers from your husband. It may be, at this time of year, looking out the office window to see the first snow of the year. Or, in my case, it may be a dispatch to a delightful French pastry shop.
Don’t get me wrong, work is hard. We can thank the Fall for that. But work itself was not due to the Fall. Adam and Eve daily tended to the garden and the animals, taking stewardship over all creation. And should not our motivation be to strive to restore the world to what it once was? We should once more grasp hold of creation, and enjoy the gift of a busy day. Even if it hurts. Even if it every force around us tells us to hate it. Love should always be our core.
That said, I have a challenge for you. Sit down and ponder, for a short time, about how wonderful you feel in that rare moment where joy catches you off guard, even though it’s in the middle of the workday. Could it be, perhaps, that with all your beliefs and protests, work is not as bad as you have believed it to be? Could it be, perhaps, that your negative impression of work is only due to your negativity? Maybe work isn’t only there to pay bills. Maybe work can have beauty too.
Stop trying to “do what you love” and simply love what you do.
a crowned knot of fire 