| Values and Meanings in the Workday Desert by Alice Houghtaling Work is all-consuming this summer. We became short-handed in the office and the newly hired person will not arrive until sometime in September. It sometimes seems as if my “universe” has shrunk to work and home. However, this situation is a time-limited circumstance, and offers me an opportunity to reflect on some core beliefs of mine about life experience in general and what I think is important. I believe that life is all about “growing, learning, and becoming” on a day to day course, and that most of this learning is done unconsciously. This makes sense to me when I consider that our common experiences of life (food, shelter, community, etc.) are what God uses to bring each person to at least some kind of proficiency of being human. Sometimes, that “course” is just plain boring, or exhausting, or confusing, or exasperating. So it is good, then, for me to touch base with some of those core beliefs to re-energize, re-awakening myself to the “why I do this” space that accompanies this experience. How have my life experiences up to this point helped me to grow into a more lovingly patient person? Am I becoming increasingly successful at being a more tolerant person? Have my life experiences taught me to enjoy the best physical health that is possible for me at whatever stage of life I currently am? Am I working daily at that? How am I experiencing myself working better in my own mind? My experience is that a life contains many areas to be explored and learned: a physical life, a mental life, an emotional life, a spiritual life, a social life, etc. Life experiences should eventually help me to thoughtfully and reflectively blend and weave these separate areas of life together to support who I am and who I am becoming. How are these life experiences helping me to more completely live, work, play, and serve others? I am not an isolated being. I was created to learn to live and be in community. As are we all. How am I using my life experiences to help me live loyally through each day trying to be awake to God’s presence in all of life? I believe that it matters whether I am increasingly becoming more reliable, trustworthy, caring, sharing, courageous, compassionate, and thoughtful. Am I becoming better each day at the various roles I inhabit – a better parent, partner, daughter, sister, friend, worker, volunteer, national citizen, world citizen, than I was the day before? Notice I did not say “perfect”, but “better”. The quality of growth is what’s important here. It helps me to think in terms of becoming increasingly more skillful at listening, communicating, thinking, engaging others in the dance of life, and, in return, becoming more flexible about being engaged by someone else. Finally, is there an ongoing, deepening sense of trust and security concerning my relationship with God continuing to grow in my mind and heart?
What are the “non-tangibles” that you find in your life situation that sustain and nurture you? What energizes and awakens you to the presence of God in the course of the day? How do you experience God in the dry, exhausting places of work? What is the value to you of those times when you simply are placing one foot after the other through the day? Alice Houghtaling is a member of the Society of Friends (Quaker), a trained labyrinth facilitator, a graduate of the Guild for Spiritual Guidance, and a graduate of Shalem Institute's Contemplative Group Leadership Program. She works full time as Office Manager and Manager of Accounts Payable for a local lumberyard in her community. She also leads contemplative prayer groups and contemplative retreats with various Protestant denominations and with a local Catholic retreat center. For more about this author: Click AUTHORS |
