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Abraham's unexpected interruption in the middle of a normal day makes a particularly good theme for us to meditate on as we consider faith in the workplace. Today, Br. Claude Lane, OSB of Mount Angel Abbey in Marion County, Oregon, will help us receive this story as we practice Visio Divina: sacred seeing.
Why do we do anything? We do it because God wants to have a relationship with us. So we look to see: Where is he working? What's he doing? We pray for eyes to be able to see it and ears to hear his voice. If we do that and join him where he's at, there's relationship rather than, “I'm praying for him to bless my plans.” God has his plans. God is God. I'm not. He's not a genie that I can rub in the bottle. He's God. So my plans are nothing. His plans are perfect. If I can trust him, I can have that blessing of relationship with him. That's cruciform life.
If you're familiar with Lectio Divina: that rhythm of prayer of just hearing, of receiving, internalizing, responding, and then resting in the Word. From my military background, and some of the wounds that I suffered, you know, emotional wounds—I found great healing through that process. But between the trail, which is another very soulful experience, and contemplative prayer, I found great healing. And in that, I wanted to share with others: to give a place, a space for others, whether they desire to be vocational, or as we talked about earlier, being an Oblate. There's great benefit to contemplative prayer.
The lesson that the Benedictines teach us is not to join a religious order (although some of us may). What these wise sisters and brothers in the faith teach us is to “bet the farm” like they do, but in our own circumstances. We, too, can risk everything for the chance to draw close to God. We commit to the way of Jesus in our whole life, no holds barred.
Seeing our work as part of God’s mission in the world leads us to deeply care about it, and about the success of the endeavors in which we are employed. It leads us to consider not just our own accumulation of income, but also the social goods that may inhere in our current job. It’s not just about the money; it’s about what God is doing in our communities and in our world. So now let’s return to the Benedictine way. What would the monastic virtue of stability look like in our working lives? What reasons do we have to stay where we are at work?
Half a century ago, people who switched jobs frequently were diagnosed with “Hobo syndrome.” Contrast this dismissal of job hopping as a type of mental pathology with the increasingly accepted wisdom of working professionals today: The best way to increase your salary over time is to switch jobs every few years. Behavioral economists warn us that we leave money on the table by staying in one job too long, simply because we fail to grasp the opportunity costs of doing so. Rather than jumping to one extreme (job hopping as a form of mental illness) or the other (job hopping as a flawless career strategy), as followers of Jesus we would do well to ask this question: How does staying in a job or leaving it fit into our part of God’s mission in the world?
With this post, we’re starting a new series: Monastic Wisdom for the Marketplace: Learning to Pray and Work with the Benedictines. We’ll be working through images and ideas from the Benedictine monastic tradition, seeing how they might bear fruit as we think about our own lives of work and prayer. This might seem like an unusual series for me to write for several reasons: - I am not a monk. - Monastic life involves a kind of withdrawal from the world. But Mission Central is all about helping people live in the world, living on mission in their everyday lives. - Isn’t this all rather . . . Catholic?
Over the past five months, we’ve been working through a series called The Work of Healing. Today, I want to close it by writing about the healing of work. Work itself is often sick and broken. Our experience of it is riddled with overwhelming burdens, dehumanizing systems, and unjust practices. Is there any reason to suppose that it can be healed? And if so, what would it take?
For me, the past year has included unexpected joys and surprising pains in both my personal life and my work life. I’ve realized, as I write a series about healing at work, that I have a testimony to share. I’ve met the healing of God in a new way this year, in a way that has everything to do with my sense of vocation, my work, and the ministry of Mission Central. I’m at a bit of a loss for how to tell this story, especially when sharing it in such a public venue. To tell the story of this past year, I have to tell at least some of the story of the past twenty years. So forgive me for what will, no doubt, be the longest blog post I’ve ever written. But I feel convicted that I need to share what the Lord has done, not least to do right by everyone who has helped and prayed for Katie and me along the way. Why not just put it in the form of a post that my personal and work network will read? I pray that this story of God’s work in our lives will give you a touchpoint for thinking about how he’s been at work in yours. So, here goes nothing.