by Fletcher Lowe

As a priest, one of my prime commitments has been to encourage, support, and confirm parishioners in their daily ministries.  One way I have done that over the years is by visiting them where they work, and while I’m there we discuss what they do and what the Sunday-Monday, faith-work connection is.  For most it is the first time that the connection issue has been raised.  Further conversation often leads to an “aha” moment.  Let me share one of those conversations as how one lawyer had such an “aha.”

Lisa: 

Until I recently retired, I was a corporate “transactional” attorney for a large international freight company. I negotiated and wrote all kinds of contracts – contracts to buy software, to lease trucks, to acquire janitorial services, to hire guards at our terminals. If it involves a contract of any type, I was usually involved in it.

 

When Fletcher Lowe originally asked if he could visit me at work to discuss the “faith connection,” that is the connection between what I do to make a living and my faith, I agreed reluctantly. I mean, after all, how could working as an attorney for a trucking company tie in to God’s work?

 

In our discussion, he challenged me to see how the gifts I have and the work I do is in fact God’s work. That drafting up a contract fairly, is applying my faith and the values rooted in my faith. That treating my fellow employees with respect, behaving in an ethical manner, and being able to help two parties work through issues and come up with a problem solving approach, rather than a conflict based disagreement, is doing God’s work. That, in fact, doing what I have the skills to do, using whatever talents I may have, is God’s work.

 

It was a revelation to me! I tended to view “God’s work” as what the priests and choir directors and youth ministers and Mother Teresas do. I viewed the “work world” as separate from the “faith world.” It turned that assumption on its ear to see that maybe simply applying the talents God gave me is, in fact, also doing “God’s work.” As dry and un-faith-like as writing up a contract sounds – it did seem possible that somehow that type of work might also serve God’s purpose. And, in that setting, my church community isn’t separate, but is a foundation, a “base camp,” for the rest of the week – a place to focus, resupply, and prepare to go back out and do whatever work is set out before me.

 

What a concept. God is truly amazing!