Work with Meaning, Work with Joy: Bring Your Spirit to Any Job (Spirit at Work Series)

189 Pages·2003·7.4 MB·English

by  Pat Sullivan

Work with Meaning,
Work with Joy
Spirit at Work Series
The Spirit at Work Series from Sheed & Ward meets the needs of
today's discerning and demanding readers looking for challenging,
thought-provoking ideas on meaningful work. The series offers prac-
tical insights and innovative ideas for finding one's vocation and
bringing faith, integrity, and balance to work and life. Each book in
the series is written by individuals who are experts in the spirituality
and work movement.
Work with Meaning,
Work with Joy
Bringing Your Spirit
to Any Job
Pat McHenry Sullivan
SHEED& WARD
Lanham, Chicago, York, Oxford
New
Published by Sheed & Ward
An Imprint of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
A Member of the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200
Lanham, MD 20706
P.O. Box 317
Oxford
OX2 9RU, UK
Distributed by National Book Network
Copyright 02 003 by Pat McHenry Sullivan
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher,
except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sullivan, Pat McHenry.
Work with meaning, work with joy : bringing your spirit to any job /
Pat McHenry Sullivan
p.cm. - (Spirit at work series)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 1-58051-117-1 (pbk.)
1. Work-Religious aspects-Christianity. I. Title. 11. Series
BT738.5 .585 2003
248.8'8-dc21
20032075826
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences- Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO 239.48-1992.
Dedicated to the memory of myf ather,
William Howard McHenry
More than anyone else,
you modeled for me integrity, purpose, and joy.
Through your stories, you kept alive the meaningful
work of your parents, whom I never got to know,
and my mother, whose life ended much too soon.
Thank you for many hugs and laughs,
for reading the plan for my master’s project
and asking how you could help,
for teaching me to see creativity
as a call from God and a gift from God.
Thank you for choosing Mayo Magdalene Lee
to be your wife, our mother,
and for choosing Violet Stahr
to help us be a whole family again.
Thank you for living, working, learning, dreaming, loving
until the very last hour
of the very last day.
This Page Intentionally Left Blank
Contents
Introduction ix
Exploring a New World of Spirit at Work
Discovering New Possibilities 1
for Meaning and Joy at Work
Seeing Your Work as a Spiritual Journey 13
Creating and Using a Workplace Altar 33
Turning Stress and Burnout into Energy and Insight 43
Finding Wisdom for Work from Many Traditions 57
Tapping Your Own Wisdom throughout the Workday 75
Working with Integrity as Your Bottom Line 85
Creating Spiritual Community at and for Your Work 99
Envisioning and Re-Visioning 113
Your Work and Your Profession
10 Resources for Meaningful and Satisfying Work 125
Endnotes 151
Acknowledxrnent s 161
This Page Intentionally Left Blank
Introduction
Exploring a New World
of Spirit at Work
On the one hand, there is what matters most to you: life and
health; relationships; service and creativity; adventure;
laughter. Time to pet the cats, watch a sunset, have a meal
with people you love. God, or whatever name you use for
the divine mystery of creation and beyond.
On the other hand, there is work and all that goes with it:
training for work; getting to and from work. Working,
whether you want to or not. Office politics, performance
reviews, projections of all kinds; recuperating from work;
getting ready for another day at work.
For most adults, work and all it entails fill half or more of
our waking hours. Too often, the "hands" for meaning and
work are at odds, as if the only way to earn a living is at the
expense of that which makes life worth living and as if sta-
tus or things bought with money from working can substi-
tute for the loss of meaning and joy.
Matthew Fox, an Episcopal priest who wrote The Rein-
ven tion of Work' and other popular books about spirituality,
believes that spirit is too often strained out of students in the
name of education. This distorts our vision of what work can
and ought to be.
Fox says:
Work is not something just humans do by the sweat of
their brow. That tree outside is working. It is sucking up
juice and sunshine, giving birth to fruits and flowers. We