Revisioning Work

One problem with the word work is that it has come to be equated with drudgery, and is considered degrading.  Now some work is drudgery, though it is not always degrading.  Vacuuming the house or scrubbing out the refrigerator is drudgery for me, though I find it in no way degrading.  And that it is drudgery is lack in me.  I enjoy the results and so I should enjoy producing the results.  I suspect that it is not the work itself which is the problem, but that it is taking me from other work, such as whatever manuscript I am currently working on.  Drudgery is not what work is meant to be.  Our work should be our play.  If we watch a child at play for a few minutes, “seriously” at play, we see that all his energies are concentrated on it.  He is working very hard at it.  And that is how the artist works, although the artist may be conscious of discipline while the child simply experiences it.

— Madeleine L’Engle, Sold Into Egypt, quoted by Carole F. Chase in Glimpses of Grace, p. 235-236

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