Loving our Work

This is my essay for a project called 50 Days of Fabulous. Each day during Easter, one of the writers posts an image or poem or Bible verse or something and writes a reflection and suggests a concrete action to do in response. I was the writer for today - so here it is:

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Reflect
I think this bee loves its work, don’t you? To live and move among such beauty and such an excess of goodness – literally to be covered in goodness like pollen – must be like heaven. The other day at the botanical garden I spent several minutes watching this bee flat out, and joyously, roll around in something that is life-giving, both to it and to the world around it. This is probably why so many of us feel closer to God outdoors than any other place. We can see God’s generosity. We can marvel at God’s creativity, at the wondrousness of how things grow. We remember Jesus talking about the lilies of the field, that not even Solomon in all his glory is clothed as one of these.

But loving our own work, seeing God’s love of beauty and lavishness in our offices and homes? That’s harder. When I am doing the laundry or mopping the floors or writing up responsibilities for church services and attending to way too many emails, I am not luxuriating in goodness like this bee. If I am covered with anything, it is sweat and maybe ink from the toner cartridge. I sometimes have a hard time connecting God’s generosity with my work.

But it precisely in these Fifty Days that we are called to be attentive to God’s generosity, and to give thanks for that generosity and to spread it around. We are called to pollinate the world with God’s love and goodness, if you will; to show the world that God’s love knows no bounds and washes over all of us, giving us new life. And so let us go forth, luxuriating in God’s goodness, and making even our work a thing of wondrous beauty.

Respond
Sit down with a pen and paper today and make a list of ways we can be joyous at work so that we communicate God’s love to those around us.