Work.

from The Book of Virtues, Ed/Commentary by William J. Bennett - c. 1993

"What are you going to be when you grow up?" is a question about work. What is your work in the world going to be? What will be you work? These are not fundamentally questions about jobs and pay, but questions about life. Work is applied effort; it is whatever we put ourselves into, whatever we expend our energy on for the sake of accomplishing or achieving something. Work in this fundamental sense is not what we do for a living but what we do with our living.

Parents and teachers both work at the upbringing of children, but only teachers receive paychecks for it. The housework of parents is real work, though it brings in no revenue. The schoolwork, homework, and teamwork of children are all real work, though the payoff is not in dollars. A child's household chores may be accompanied by an allowance, but they are not done for an allowance. They are done because they need to be done.

The opposite of work is not leisure or play or having fun but idleness - not investing ourselves in anything. Even sleeping can be a form of investment if it is done for the sake of future activity. But sleep, like amusement, can also be a form of escape - oblivion sought for its own sake rather than for its own sake rather than for the sake of renewal. It can be a waste of time. Leisure activity or play or having fun, on the other hand, can involve genuine investment of the self and not be a waste of time at all.

We want our children to flourish, to live well and fare well - to be happy. Happiness, as Aristotle long ago pointed out, resides in activity, both physical and mental. It resides in doing things that one can take pride in doing well, and hence that one can enjoy doing. It is a great mistake to identify enjoyment with mere amusement or relaxing or being entertained. Life's greatest joys are not what one does apart from the work of one's life, but with the work of one's life. Those who have missed the joy of work, of a job well done, have missed something very important. This applies to our children, too. When we want our children to be happy, we want them to enjoy life. We want them to find and enjoy their work in the world.

How do we help prepare our children for lives like that? Once again, the keys are practice and example: practice in doing various things that require a level of effort and engagement compatible with some personal investment in the activity, and the examples of our own lives.

The first steps in doing so is learning how to do them... Good habits of personal hygiene, and helping with meals or bed-making or laundry or caring for pets or any other such household chores all require learning. All can be done well or poorly. All can be done cheerfully and with pride, or grudgingly and with distaste. And which way we do them is really up to us. It is a matter of choice. This is perhaps the greatest insight that the ancient Roman Stoics championed for humanity. There are no menial jobs, only menial attitudes. And our attitudes are up to us.

Parents show their children how to enjoy doing the things that have to be done by working with them, by encouraging and appreciating their efforts, and by the witness of their own cheerful and conscientious example. And since the possibilities for happy and productive lives are largely opened up for youth by the quality and extent of their education, parents who work most effectively at providing their offspring with what it takes to lead flourishing lives take education very seriously.

Work is effort applied toward some end. The most satisfying work involves directing our efforts toward achieving ends that we ourselves endorse as worthy expressions of our talent and character. Volunteer service work, if it is genuinely voluntary and exercises our talents in providing needed service, is typically satisfying in this way. Youth needs experience of this kind of work. It is a good model for our working lives.

The Potter's House

Pastor Raymond gave a sermon on Jer. 18:1-6 . I thought I'd just post it somewhere so it's around, because I thought it was very well presented. He described the process of creating pottery and made spiritual parallels to describe how God molds us.

① Election
Nowadays bags of clay are available from the art store, but in the olden days potters had to dig up their own clay. In spiritual terms, this is equivalent to God's election of his chosen people. We have worth because God chose us.
② Cleansing
Clay has to have all the debris removed, or else it will cause the piece to crack in the oven.
(I didn't write down the analogy for this point, I'm assuming it was forgiveness?)
③ Wedging: knead the clay, and throw it against a surface
☞ to remove air pockets (analogous to pride), God causes suffering, in order to create humility
☞ to achieve plasticity - to make the clay soft enough to mold, yet hard enough to retain shape. In order to be soft enough to be molded by God, we need to have God's Word to treat our spiritual dryness.
☞ porosity - for moisture to escape while drying, without cracking, the potter adds grog (broken up, ground up pottery from past failed pieces). This is the past experiences, both good and bad, that we've had so that no experiences are wasted. These hardships allow us to give advice to others who are experiencing the same thing.
④ Centering
The wheel is analogous to the turning, moving circumstances of life. We need to center ourselves on God's Will, and keep God at the center of our lives or else it's all in vain (Ps. 127:1).
⑤ Molding (Pressure)
This is when the potter starts shaping the clay into what he wants. If it doesn't take the right form, he collapses it and starts over again. God keeps working with a lump of clay until it takes the form He wants. Sometimes we tend to resist God's work, but we need to accept His Sovereignty.
⑥ Waiting (Patience)
The clay piece has to air dry before going into the oven. This is the same as periods of spiritual/emotional dryness. Don't trust emotions!
⑦ Glazing - not necessary or functional
⑧ Firing
Causes irreversible changes in the pottery - it hardens, shrinks, and can hold water (not porous anymore). These are the trials that cause genuine faith.
How do you come out after a trial? Do you become an instrument for noble purpose?