Regular Life

Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands...
1 Thessalonians 4:11

One of the people I follow on Twitter recently remarked that as he grows older (and I think he's around my age, which is 49) he finds holidays to be unneeded interruptions in the routine of his life. That may sound funny, but I found myself agreeing with him. It's not about being a workaholic, which is how I think some folks may interpret it. It's more about getting to a point where we've figured out what works for us. I do best if I get 8-9 hours of sleep per night, if I work between 35 and 45 hours a week, if I get home from work by 5:30 pm, and if I eat home-cooked suppers with my housemates most evenings. I have a really good community of friends to spend time with, good and interesting books to read and DVDs to watch, two fun kitties to cuddle with. There's a nice state park near my house that I visit often to take photos with a good camera that I'm happy to have. I'm reasonably healthy. And best of all, I have work that I really enjoy. Having had jobs in my younger days that were stressful drudgery (for a variety of reasons, some having more to to do with my attitude toward them than any of their actual circumstances) I have really grown to appreciate having work that I like, look forward to doing, and am good at. Sure, sometimes there's too much of it, like right now, but truthfully I find that to be less stressful than when there isn't quite enough to do. We're meant to be doing some kind of useful work that contributes to the well-being of society, I believe, and it really is a blessing to have it. My life is good, and I'm not pining to get away from it. Holidays are nice, but so is my regular life.

I sometimes wonder about the folks recently in the news whose "work" it has been to push money through modems, or flip houses, or any other kind of pseudo-work that may make them a lot of money, but surely can't be, in itself, very satisfying at all. I think those people need our prayers and pastoral care just as much as those whose work is too hard, or pays too little, or is in danger of being terminated because of the hard times in the economy.

Holding in prayer: JZ, JK, KD, KR, RH, SB and others dealing with serious health issues; AS and others grieving the death of family members; people looking for work, people in miserable jobs, people whose work oppresses or exploits others; JW, MG, KR, CR in discernment; Sisters of St. Joseph in Brazil.

Photo from Fort Snelling State Park. All photographs by Baya Clare, CSJ unless otherwise noted.