Biblical theology is practical to its core and it is heretical to promote,
as theological institutions have for decades, unapplied theology.
- R. Paul Stevens
Ms. Sayers' 1st proposition: stated quite briefly, is that work is not, primarily a thing one does to live, but the thing one lives to do. It is, or it should be, the full expression of the worker's faculties, the thing in which he finds spiritual, mental, and bodily satisfaction, and the medium in which he offers himself to God.
The author then offers consequences of her point, one being the "question of profits and remuneration." Personally, her 3 paragraphs containing 350 or so words are boiled into the following...
...the mere fact that a man will put loving labor into some hobby which can never bring him any economically adequate return. His satisfaction comes, in the godlike manner, from looking upon what he has made and finding it very good. He is no longer bargaining with his work, but serving it.
I don't care who you are...and we can, and will, debate other factors concerning wages and profits, but that statement is good. Really good.. With our hobby, what we love to just DO, we are serving that work. And work is good.
Our culture has taken a turn, it always does.....take turns, and isn't just fashionable that many are on paths of "finding our passion," "finding the life we love," "exploring our emotions," etc, etc. To seek what we want to be when we grow up....no matter what our age, has become important.
"His satisfaction comes, in the godlike manner, from looking upon what he has made and finding it very good." Setting with a group of businessmen this week, my friend Dale Miller, co-owner of Austin Fine Floors, asked the question
"if you could do any job you wanted, what would it be?"
I was very surprised that 6 of the 7 men answered "what I'm doing. The job I have."
Pondering the answers the past 3 days, and in light of Sayers 1st proposition, the follow-up question should have been
"what if you weren't paid any money, would it still be the job you wanted? If not, what job, what work, would you do"
If money was out of the picture, would I work? What work would that be?
To that end....
