Work is love made visible- Kahlil Gibran
Working from the Heart - by Sarah Ban Breathnach
Most of us do not consider our work a personal form of worship. Work is worldly. Worship is withdrawing from the world to honor Spirit. But could there be a more beautiful way to honor the Great Creator than by contributing to the re-creation of the world through your gifts? This is what we're called to do each day through our work. Yet it is difficult to get even a glimmer of the holy when we are harassed, unappreciated, over-whelmed, frazzled, and burned-out.
Marianne Williamson believes that the workplace is "but a front for a temple, a healing place where people [can] be lifted above the insanity of a frightened world." Once, when she was working as a cocktail waitress- years before she answered her calling to become a spiritual guide and writer- she realized that people only thought they were coming to her for a drink. Really the bar was a church in disguise and she could minister to people with warmth, conversation, and compassion. "No matter what we do, we can make it our ministry," she writes in her illuminating A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles."No matter what form our job or activity takes, the content is the same as everyone else's; we are here to minister to human hearts. If we talk to anyone, or see anyone, or even think of anyone, then we have the opportunity to bring love into the universe. From a waitress to the head of a movie studio, from an elevator operator to the president of a nation, there is no one whose job is unimportant to God."
It's easier to imagine that our work could be our worhship if we could perceive the sacred in how we spend at least eight hours of the day. Perhaps circumstances, to discover the work we would love to do. But until we do we need to learn to love the work we're presently doing.
Today you can begin to transform your workplace and your working style by considering how much you have to be grateful for. If you have a job, even one you dislike, it's a safety net as you take a leap of faith toward your authenticity; if you're out of work, the path already has been cleared for you to answer your authentic calling. Invoke Spirit as your personal career counselor. The mystical poet Kahlil Gilbran tells us, "When you work, you fulfull a part of earth's fondest dream assigned to you when that dream is born."
Fullfilling your part of the earth's fondest dream occurs when you work from the heart.
HAPPY LABOR DAY, TOWANDA!!!
|