Mistakes to Avoid as We Get to Work Today

We continue today with our efforts to keep our work spiritually grounded.

We begin today's thoughts noting that every type of work (at least those I'm familiar with) requires vigilance to avoid mistakes. For example, some of my work projects can be a minefield of mistakes waiting to explode if I'm not careful. A lot of what I do requires attention to detail. I have to tread lightly and check my work carefully when it's done. There nothing worse than producing an analysis that's mostly correct except for one or two errors. They may not jump out at you at first, but once you see them, they can all be characterized as glaring errors. I hate 'em. Once discovered (which is rare, I'm glad to say) they need quick fixing before they embarrass the heck out of me. Along my with desire to produce my best work in the form of a high quality product, fear of error remains a major motivation for checking and double-checking that work.

Committing errors in our work product is bad enough. But Father Joseph Schryvers is about to tell about something far worse, something he calls an "atmosphere of error." Let's see what he means:

“Here below man habitually lives in an atmosphere of error. Political events, material preoccupations, the tyranny of current principles, the customs of the world, the fads and vogues of society, luxury, and a hundred other things, insensibly engross his attention. To such an extent is his mind monopolized by these ideas that he seems not to realize that beyond this passing world in which he now lives there is another which is eternal

If we've taken the time and put in the effort to build our spiritual lives, we'll easily see Father's point. So far, so good. But simply pursuing our pious practices each day may not be enough to get us out of the woods:

"What is true of men in general is true, to a certain extent, of pious souls. Human respect, attachment to a person, an object, or an employment; little jealousies, friction with others, trifling pretensions..."

Notice how "employment" takes it's place in Father's list of items that distract our souls "from the one thing necessary." What good will even our best work be if it serves as such a distraction? Distraction from what?

"... all these, and many other similar nothings, distract the best souls from the one thing necessary. One must always act against what the Holy Spirit calls: ‘The fascination of trifles.’ For while the soul is thus dissipated and absorbed from without, Jesus cannot occupy her from within. In order to get beyond appearances and to face realities, deep and frequent reflection is necessary so that the seriousness of life and what will follow it may be grasped."

Father's words remind us of the critical importance of our Interior Life. Pious acts which do not both spring from and alternately feed our Interior Life therefore run the risk of becoming one of those trifles. A deep and robust Interior Life forms a kind of home base from which we initiate our pious acts. And when they come from deep within, those acts repay our initiative by further strengthening our Interior Life.

So one thing we can do to keep ourselves spiritually grounded during the work day is to keep our Interior Life "turned on." That requires us to always be aware of God's Presence in everything we think, day, and do. Easy to suggest; not so easy to execute consistently. In order to have a prayer of success here, we have to take this seriously. We can't treat it as something optional, or something that only living saints can manage.

If we neglect our Interior Life, we run the danger of it becoming weak and ineffective. It needs nurturing. It needs to be exercised, just as we exercise our minds and bodies. As we've discussed many times in the past, we need to spend time in prayer, meditation, reading Scripture and good spiritual works, studying the truths of our Catholic religion. While most of that effort will likely not take place at work, that doesn't mean we exercise our Interior Life before or after the work day and abandon it during. 

Depending on your work, you may or my not have time or energy for pious practices in the midst of plying your trade. But if you work at being spiritually grounded, the tasks of daily labor, your interactions with colleagues and customers, your efforts to produce excellent work can all spring from and feed your Interior Life, even if we don't consciously think of them doing so as we go through the day's work. 

This Sunday we'll consider how we need to see the world - and our work - indeed life itself if we want to stay spiritually grounded at work.