Divine Drudgery - Work with Pure Intentions

All jobs involve drudgery, those times when we’re most likely to lose sight of hope and wish to chuck everything. Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Our hope for the yet unfulfilled fruits of our work typically keeps us going. Typically we hope for more than a paycheck, though of course our motivation can include money. The larger object of our hope, however, is a sense of accomplishment, a service rendered, a job well done, something created—a poem, a roof, or a clean kitchen floor.

Lucky are those so absorbed in their labor that they can work for work’s sake, with no eye on the result. Thomas Merton, the famous Trappist monk, drew a line between work with a “right intention” and work with “a pure intention.” All honorable work, he said, may be done with a right intention—that is, for an anticipated result. But the Christian aims to work with a pure intention—to forget about the result and live in the moment, absorbed in the task. This is a spiritual discipline, Merton said, and the way that our work becomes a form of prayer. In this way, work becomes a means to experience God’s presence, as in this poem by the 17th-century Anglican priest George Herbert:

The Elixir

Teach me, my God and King,

In all things Thee to see,

And what I do in anything,

To do it as for Thee

[...]

A servant with this clause

Makes drudgery divine:

Who sweeps a room, as for Thy laws

Makes that and th' action fine.

Work for its own sake may indeed have the best results. The inventor Thomas Edison said that “chance favors the prepared mind.” Discoveries come to one who has prepared, laid the groundwork, sometimes never knowing the result. Modern physics is filled with stories of 19th century mathematicians who calculated for sheer love of calculations, though practical applications did not appear until the late 20th century. (One such obscure figure stands behind the modern Chaos Theory.) Such an attitude surely prompted Martin Luther’s remark that if he knew the world was going to end tomorrow, he’d still plant an apple tree today.

To learn to appreciate our work for its own sake—though we may never love the drudgery—is to learn to be present with our work regardless of the result. Not only will we know more peace while we work, we’ll probably work better and find more joy in it. Who knows, we may even make the drudgery divine.

At least, that can be our hope.