Work
Work is a given for most of us. Each day is dedicated to shaping the world, typically in concert with others to derive our sustenance, the necessary energy to feed, clothe, and shelter our organism. That is my basic definition of work. Yet, this essential dimension of life is not nearly so simple. Within my lifetime, the interface with the larger economy, and with the exigencies of politics have transformed work from an acceptable and even pleasant routine, to that of a hazardous battlefield experience. The psychological burden of work has increased exponentially over the years. One feels like Odysseus. There seems to be no end of the challenges and dangers of the work journey. Will one ever reach home?
Here is a poem about work that gave me pause this morning.
18
Love is the crisis of our work.
When the watcher speaks of love
he is speaking not of history, not
or past or future, but of the love
in which all time has moved, in which
all things were and are and are to be,
the love that is before the beginning,
that is beyond the end, that is
entirely present as the flower of a day.From A Small Porch in the Woods
by Wendell Berry
