It was a pretty walk, though cold. It was just getting light and the eastern sky was yellow. It was a little misty, and red, orange, and yellow colors were scattered through the neighborhood on the trees and bushes. When I came back into our cul-de-sac, I wished I had brought my camera because the maple tree looked so gorgeous. This is a picture from last week Saturday. It's like this, only more so.
It's such a pleasant, relaxing feeling to sleep until I wake naturally, get up gradually, take my walk when I'm ready, then come back in and be able to stay home and potter around my house. When I was spooning the coffee into the brewer, the line of the Loverboy song came into my mind, "Everybody's working for the weekend." I do feel, sort of, that my weekends are my reward for my work week. I work for a living Monday through Friday, then on Saturday and Sunday I live my living.
Actually, I have a good job. Out of my varied job history, I would say this is the job I'm doing the best at. I feel fairly cheerful (for me) in the mornings as I drive to work. In the past I've had jobs where I was consumed with dread and anxiety on my morning commute. I think the change has been within me over the decades, not necessarily that all the jobs I used to dread were that dreadful, but at that time I was someone who felt dread. Now I feel more gratitude for having a job that I'm good at, with pay that meets my needs, and where the people I work with are reasonably pleasant. My standards for happiness have come down, perhaps, and I'm happier because of it.
So it is no denigration of my job or workplace to say that I would not do that job if I did not get paid for it and if I did not need the money. I've known women who say that their sense of identity comes from having a career. They wouldn't want to not work -- in the sense of paid employment. As women, what they're saying is, even if they had a husband who earned enough for their household to live on, they would still want to hold a job. Or I suppose if they had an inheritance they could live on they would still want a job. Whereas if I had enough to live on from another source, I would gladly forego employment.
However, since I must work and (if I'm fortunate enough) will do so for probably (hopefully?) another twenty years, I try to infuse it with meaning through prayer and mindfulness. I try to remember the presence of Christ with me in the workplace, to do my tasks well, and to extend my prayers and any kindness I can show to my co-workers. Christ has placed me there to serve him in that place through doing that job, so I do my best. So I'm not really just living for the weekends. I'm living fully in and through my job. I just like weekends better.
Another question is whether if I had my Saturday schedule every day, would it seem meaningless instead of relaxing to get up and feel there was nothing I had to do? I'm sure that I would soon work out a schedule of some kind of tasks around the house and garden and of church involvement, so I would not have a day with nothing to do. That's our nature.
All in all, it's probably wholesome for me to have to work for my living.
When I searched the word "work" on BibleGateway, I saw several uses that can help me understand the nature and meaning of work:
1. Creation, plants and animals, and people are the work of God's hands.
2. In Exodus, first there is the hard work the Israelites do in Egypt as slaves, but then there is the skilled work they do in manufacturing the tabernacle.
3. Idolatry = worshipping the work of our own hands.
4. Jesus refers to his own actions as work -- his work and his Father's work.
5. Paul is a worker by being a missionary, but he also works for his own living.
6. God is working in us.
7. We are not saved by works, but we are saved to do work for God.
Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working” (John 5:17).
Slaves [Employees], obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving (Colossians 3:22-24).
Six days do your work, but on the seventh day do not work, so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and so that the slave born in your household and the foreigner living among you may be refreshed (Exodus 23:12).
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