Measure Twice, Cut Once: Nature and Grace in the Workplace

One thing among many others I learned from my father in law was the handyman's axiom "measure twice, cut once." It's true in the spiritual realm as well.

Another axiom...the angelic doctor Thomas Aquinas declared "grace perfects nature."

Let's think about the two axioms together. For every action we take we need to make two measures, either consciously or unconsciously.

First, is what I am going to do in accord with the nature of who I am? Second, is what am I going to do in accord with the law of grace?

If the two appear to be in conflict, then we need to ask ourselves very carefully whether or not we are asking the right question.... or perhaps the right question in the wrong way. Conversely, if we aren't even asking ourselves these questions, we have lost our spiritual way.

That seems to be the case today when ethical decisions boil down to a relativistic "what's best for me" or when the questions AND their answers are driven by a compulsive need to assert one's "true" identity. I am a woman, I am gay, I am Hispanic,... you fill in the blank.

That sort of self-absorbed compulsion should not be a surprise. It happens when folks have concluded that there is no objective moral truth, nor AnyOne who cares enough to set boundaries. I am left to my own devices, to create my own reality, to decide who I am. and because there are no givens, affirming that identity and having everyone else affirm me becomes an obsession.

It seems to me, though, that the life of St Joseph under the title of "Worker" provides a sublime illustration of how both of these important questions can merge gracefully, and be answered in a single life. And that answer is the antidote to today's workplace malaise as well as the perpetual identity crisis.

Of course, Joseph's work as a carpenter (or more accurately in ancient terms, an artisan) , reflected his nature. Most of us have experienced the fact that some of us are born handymen- others not. But if we are handy with tools, we still intuitively feel that "yes!" SOMEWHERE in our lives, whether it be in the heft of a hammer, the beauty of a well composed symphony, or the symmetry of a perfectly balanced spead sheet.

But Joseph's hidden life as the teacher of Jesus, as the listener to God's whispering guidance, as protector of the Blessed Virgin Spouse, are pieces of his life which represent the perfection of his own nature under Grace.

One healing aspect of this Feast is the very fact that it does bring the two facets of life back together. Indeed, the feast arose out of the Church's felt need to respend to the plight of workers in their struggles to gain basic rights.

In that sense, St Joseph the Worker lays blessing hands upon the turmoil of our work lives, as he did on the labor struggles of the nineteenth century. Nowadays communal May Day demonstrations have given way to the supreme isolation of texting during meetings.

But, the basic bifurcation is still the same. We think that what we do for work is our work, not God's. And the answer to that unnatural split is in the sublime nature-grace unity of bringing our tools, our work lives, our hours of labor, to the altar of Grace.

St Joseph, Pray for Us!

(Working) Breakfast with Jesus

Back when I was a youth pastor we organized
overnight "lock-ins" for various age groups.
I always ended the long Mountain Dew/ Oreo filled night with a little guided imagery meditation which I called "Breakfast with Jesus."

We gathered everyone together and fed them donuts and orange juice. Then I had them sit on the floor in a circle and close their eyes. Then I read today's gospel (John 21:1-14), which is John's account of Jesus third post-resurrection appearance to the disciples.

He appears mysteriously by the sea,
greeting the disciples who come in from a long night of fishing,
offering them grilled fish and bread, hot off the fire.

I asked the young people to close their eyes
and imagine having breakfast with the resurrected Lord.

What would He look like?

How would you feel as he approached you with breakfast?

What would you discuss with Him
as you sat warming yourself
by the fire in the chilly dawn air?

There is a wonderul air of unreality about this gospel account.
It appears like an appendage in the "rump" 21st chapter of the gospel,
often differentiated by scholars as different from the body of the work .
The gospel author is at pains to describe this sea-side event
three times as a "revelation" of Jesus to his disciples.

But as usual the author of the fourth gospel won't let us off
thinking that that this is simply some transcendental vision.
There's that mysterious catch of fish
with its curiously concrete count of "153."
And of course there's the breakfast..... Jesus as cook.

As best I can remember (its been almost 15 years ago)
my own meditation almost always consisted of asking Jesus questions
about this, that and the other.
Why do certain things happen?
What do you want me to do about "X"?

Strange thing,
now I notice two things quite different
from those meditations so many years ago.

One, Jesus comes and sits silently with me.
We eat, we sit, and we're quiet like an old couple
that no longer need to constantly talk to each other
in order to communicate.

Two, I realize that
He has come to me, a fisherman, in my place of work,
by the sea.

How did Jesus come to me today at work,
in the many joys and changes,
and delays and trials
which marked this up and down Friday?

How is He with me now in the late evening silence
when only keyboard clicks and furnance rumblings
break our shared silence?

Between the Grasshopper and the Ant

Work can be all consuming sometimes. We get so involved in what we DO for a living that we lose our perspective on who we ARE.

Jesus had no such problem.


His work on this earth arose completely out of who he was. This is never more evident than in yesterday's Gospel reading from John (5:17-30).

"My Father is at work until now, so I am at work."

and

"The Son cannot do anything on his own," but only what he sees the Father doing;
for what He does, the Son will do also.
For the Father loves the Son
and shows him everything that He Himself does."


The gentle truth lies somewhere between the grasshopper and the ant.

Believing in God's love and care for us doesn't mean that we can forget about planning, struggle, labor, sweat and tears. But neither does it mean that we are called to labor endlessly in the vineyard, never lifting our eyes to heaven. There is no holiness to be gained by putting our nose continually to the grindstone.

Instead, our identity as God's children calls us over and over, daily, hourly, minute by minute, to ask ourselves, "what is the Father's work in me?" This doesn't mean that we are always working... for sometimes the Father's work is to go for a walk, enjoy a good movie, put away a few cold ones with friends.

If we are truly listening for the Father's voice, and the direction it provides, we will hear now and then the suggestion to come away for a while, to relax, to let go and let God.

I like the story from the personal diary of Blessed John XXIII, who was staying up late one evening praying. This was during Vatican II and all the concerns at Vatican II were truly trying the patience of the usually jovial Pope. The Pope was extremely frustrated. So he ended the day with the prayer/message to God: "It's your church, God, I'm going to bed."