I read something this morning at Dana Street Roasting Company in Mountain View that I really liked. It is from the book
Callings: Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation,
by William Placher. The chapter that I enjoyed was by a British writer
by the name of Dorothy Sayers. (*For more on her life, go to:
http://www.sayers.org.uk/dorothy.html.)
The chapter title is, "Vocation in Work", and it was written in 1942...in the middle of WWII. I would like to share with you what Sayers wrote about a certain group of workers who "have never...altogether abandoned the divine conception of what work ought to be." Although she is writing about artists, I, too, identify with this group of workers. As a pastor, I have always felt like "I must contrive to make money so that I may live to work."
"They are people whose way of life is, in essentials, so sharply distinguished from that of the ordinary worker that the designers of economic Utopias can find no place for them, and will scarcely allow them to be workers at all...This odd, alien community is that of the men and women who live by and for the works of the creative imagination - the people whom we lump together under the general name of "artists."
"The great primary contrast between the artist and the ordinary worker is this: the worker works to make money, so that he may enjoy those things in life which are not his work and which his work can purchase for him; but the artist makes money by his work in order that he may go on working. The artist does not say: "I must work in order to live"; but "I must contrive to make money so that I may live to work." For the artist there is no distinction between work and living. His work is his life, and the whole of his life - not merely the material world about him, or the colors and sounds and events that he perceives, but also all his own personality and emotions, the whole of his Life - is the actual material of his work.
Consider the great barrier that this forges between himself and the economic worker, in quite practical and mundane ways. For example, it would be preposterous for a genuine artist to submit himself to strict trade-union rules. How could he agitate for an eight-hour day or keep to it if he got it? There is no moment in the twenty-four hours when he can truthfully say he is not working. The emotions, the memories, the sufferings, the dreams even of the periods when he is not actually at his desk or his easel - these are his stuff and his tools; and his periods of leisure are the periods when his creative imagination may be most actively at work. He cannot say, "Here work stops and leisure begins"; he cannot stop work unless he stops living. Or how could he, in his own financial interests or those of his fellows, adopt the policy of keeping his work, in speed or quality, down to the level of the slowest or stupidest of his colleagues...Any limitation upon his right to work himself to death if he chooses, or to choose the kind of work he will do, that he will resist to his last breath, for to set fetters upon his work is to set fetters upon his life.
There is a price paid for the artist's freedom, as for all freedom. He, of all workers in the world, has the last economic security. The money value of his work is at the mercy of every wind of public opinion; and if he falls by the wayside he cannot claim unemployment benefit, or look to the State to pay doctor's bills, educate his children, and compensate him for injuries incurred in the exercise of his profession. If he falls off a cliff while painting a picture, if he loses his wits or suffers a failure of invention, society will not hold itself responsible; nor, if his publisher suddenly decides to be rid of him, can he sue the man for wrongful dismissal. Moreover, he is taxed with a singular injustice; while the world pays tribute to his unworldliness by expecting him to place a great deal of his time, energy, and stock-in-trade at the disposal of the community without payment. The artist puts up with these disabilities because his way of life is not primarily rooted in economics. True, he often demands high prices for his work - but he wants the money not in order that he may stop working and go away and do something different, but in order that he may indulge in the luxury of doing some part of his work for nothing. "Thank heaven," the artist will say, "I've made enough with that book, or play, or picture of mine, to take a couple of years off to do my own work" - by which he probably means some book or play or picture which will cost him an immense amount of labor and pains and which he has very little chance of selling. In fact, when the artist rejoices because he has been relieved from the pressure of economic necessity, he means that he has been relieved - not from work, but from money." (Pages 407 - 409.)
I have been a full-time, paid pastor for most of my adult life. I have never done it for the money. I have never wanted to do anything else. (*Yes, there have been plenty of times that pastoral work seemed too difficult and painful to do and I have wanted to quit...but that was more whining than a sincere, heart-felt "gee, I think God has made me to do something else.")
Living this way has taken a lot of courage. I am so glad to have Jacquie by my side, not to mention our three kids. They have all been on the same adventure...with all its perils, benefits, uncertainties, and joys.
I am at a point in my life where I may be obligated to make money in some other way. Sometimes this makes me incredibly excited and curious. Why? Because I believe that God brought us to California because He had good things for us here. I have never known Jesus to be the sort of person who did a "bait-n-switch"! Other times, it scares me. I wonder if I will have to work a couple of dead-end, poorly paid, boring jobs in order to pay the bills. Whatever kind of job I have in the future, it will not distract me from what I said at the beginning, quoting Ms. Sayers: "I must contrive to make money so that I may live to work." My "work" is to bring glory to God and I can do that anywhere...especially when bringing "glory" to God looks like loving and serving others.
I have chosen to trust God, to worship Him, and, to be grateful - both for today, and for our uncertain tomorrow. I'll keep you posted!
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