The Soul at Work
Do you prepare yourself for your work day? We've talked many times about spending time with God in the morning: Morning Offering, meditation, reading the Bible, spiritual and doctrinal reading. This prepares us for the day. But does it prepare us for work? Isn't it "just" a religious exercise?
When it comes to work, isn't specific planning preparation for the tasks of the day more important: prioritizing your "To Do" list, confirming meetings, being on time, etc.?
One way to understand why you need to do both - and why your time with God isn't somehow separate and apart from your work - is to remember that you're made up of body and soul. When you show up at work each day, you show up body and soul.
We don't spend enough time thinking about our souls anymore. We live in a secular society where the body takes up all our time and attention. But we're Catholics, and we should know better.
But guess what? This lack of concern and understanding of the soul isn't unique to our age. St Theresa of Avila spoke of it of it in the 17th century in her spiritual masterwork, The Interior Castle:
It is no small misfortune and disgrace that, through our own fault, we neither understand our nature nor our origin. Would it not be gross ignorance, my daughters, if, when a man was questioned about his name, or country, or parents, he could not answer? Stupid as this would be, it is unspeakably more foolish to care to learn nothing of our nature except that we possess bodies, and only to realize vaguely that we have souls, because people say so and it is a doctrine of faith. Rarely do we reflect upon what gifts our souls may possess, Who dwells within them, or how extremely precious they are. Therefore we do little to preserve their beauty; all our care is concentrated on our bodies, which are but the coarse setting of the diamond, or the outer walls of the castle.
St Theresa then goes on to attempt to explain the soul in detail. Her writing tries to capture that interior world that escapes our attention too often. I'm struck by her pointing out how vague is our understanding of our souls. We acknowledge the existence of our souls - if we do so at all - merely because it's a doctrine of our faith. But we sell ourselves short when we do, to say the least.
We Catholic men need to understand that the soul is the place where our "interior life" takes place. The life of our soul doesn't cease to exist the moment we start working. It's not something can afford to ignore during our busy work days. It's not something "extra" that we tend to a few minutes a day (if that much).
Not only do we tend to our soul as we prepare for the work day, but we need to tend to it all through our work. Work isn't just something we do "in the world," something apart from our spiritual lives. The value of our work has to do with our ability to "sanctify" our work. And sanctifying our work starts with acknowledging that we have a soul, a place where God dwells all the time within us, a place we don't leave when we begin working each day.
This isn't about "mysticism" or "spiritualism"; it's fundamental stuff. What distinguishes us as God's creatures is our human soul. C'mon, we all learned this when we were kids, right? But that's St Theresa's point. Many of us learned it as a doctrine of faith and haven't given it a second thought since.
But isn't this sort of "excessive" - this idea that we should think about our soul, and remember that we have a soul when we're working? Don't we have enough to think about during the work day?
I've struggled with this myself. I tend to focus on the concrete and practical. But once you realize the "fact" that your soul exists, even if you just think it's that "other part" of you, the part you don't see or even feel most of the time, that simple understanding calls out for attention. Doesn't it?
Can you see why the fact that our soul is at work demands some sort of attention, some greater understanding? Can you see why reading good spiritual works isn't just something we do "outside" work, but that the understanding we gain of this soul of ours directly connects with and affects our work each day?
When we show up at work, we show up body and soul. It's what takes place in our soul throughout the day that sanctifies our work.
When it comes to work, isn't specific planning preparation for the tasks of the day more important: prioritizing your "To Do" list, confirming meetings, being on time, etc.?
One way to understand why you need to do both - and why your time with God isn't somehow separate and apart from your work - is to remember that you're made up of body and soul. When you show up at work each day, you show up body and soul.
We don't spend enough time thinking about our souls anymore. We live in a secular society where the body takes up all our time and attention. But we're Catholics, and we should know better.
But guess what? This lack of concern and understanding of the soul isn't unique to our age. St Theresa of Avila spoke of it of it in the 17th century in her spiritual masterwork, The Interior Castle:
It is no small misfortune and disgrace that, through our own fault, we neither understand our nature nor our origin. Would it not be gross ignorance, my daughters, if, when a man was questioned about his name, or country, or parents, he could not answer? Stupid as this would be, it is unspeakably more foolish to care to learn nothing of our nature except that we possess bodies, and only to realize vaguely that we have souls, because people say so and it is a doctrine of faith. Rarely do we reflect upon what gifts our souls may possess, Who dwells within them, or how extremely precious they are. Therefore we do little to preserve their beauty; all our care is concentrated on our bodies, which are but the coarse setting of the diamond, or the outer walls of the castle.
St Theresa then goes on to attempt to explain the soul in detail. Her writing tries to capture that interior world that escapes our attention too often. I'm struck by her pointing out how vague is our understanding of our souls. We acknowledge the existence of our souls - if we do so at all - merely because it's a doctrine of our faith. But we sell ourselves short when we do, to say the least.
We Catholic men need to understand that the soul is the place where our "interior life" takes place. The life of our soul doesn't cease to exist the moment we start working. It's not something can afford to ignore during our busy work days. It's not something "extra" that we tend to a few minutes a day (if that much).
Not only do we tend to our soul as we prepare for the work day, but we need to tend to it all through our work. Work isn't just something we do "in the world," something apart from our spiritual lives. The value of our work has to do with our ability to "sanctify" our work. And sanctifying our work starts with acknowledging that we have a soul, a place where God dwells all the time within us, a place we don't leave when we begin working each day.
This isn't about "mysticism" or "spiritualism"; it's fundamental stuff. What distinguishes us as God's creatures is our human soul. C'mon, we all learned this when we were kids, right? But that's St Theresa's point. Many of us learned it as a doctrine of faith and haven't given it a second thought since.
But isn't this sort of "excessive" - this idea that we should think about our soul, and remember that we have a soul when we're working? Don't we have enough to think about during the work day?
I've struggled with this myself. I tend to focus on the concrete and practical. But once you realize the "fact" that your soul exists, even if you just think it's that "other part" of you, the part you don't see or even feel most of the time, that simple understanding calls out for attention. Doesn't it?
Can you see why the fact that our soul is at work demands some sort of attention, some greater understanding? Can you see why reading good spiritual works isn't just something we do "outside" work, but that the understanding we gain of this soul of ours directly connects with and affects our work each day?
When we show up at work, we show up body and soul. It's what takes place in our soul throughout the day that sanctifies our work.
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