Defining Work Up

This past week I had to confront a rather painful reality of adult life–the 40 hour work week. I recently started (and then quit to take different job) a paralegal position in Midvale, Utah. I was again reminded of the banality of modern life. We have diminished the day so much into its bland constituent parts that we no longer recognize the substance of the time that is given to us. I have few complaints about the company I worked for, or even the majority of what they did. Yet, there was an irrepressible sinking feeling within me as I commuted to work and sat in my shared work space, not even wanting to fathom the possibility of having to work at the job longer than a few months. It was a panicked, suffocating feeling that I have not felt too many times before.

However, there was at least one other time I felt exactly the same. I was 14 years old and there was absolutely nothing I loved more than the thought of an idyllic summer spent out in the open; a summer full of games with my siblings, walks through the woods, lazy afternoons spent watching thunder clouds gather overhead, and an extended twilight made to slowly watch the fireflies light up the backyard. Suddenly, the idea of this idyllic summer that I had treasured, which was as much a reality as an ideal to be striven for, seemed to vanish before me. This happened as my parents urged me to take a job window-washing with a middle-aged man from my congregation. I detested the idea and the thought of not being able to choose the shape and pattern of my ideal summer. Nonetheless, through some (retrospectively) wise cajoling I relented and decided to try it out. I can’t recall exactly how many days I worked window-washing, but I vividly remember the day I quit. We had been working, according to my memory at least, much of the day, and as evening approached I was eager to return home and salvage what little remained of my summer evening. Unfortunately, the man I worked for had other ideas and decided to pursue one last job. As we completed this last job my mind and eyes flitted anxiously. I repeatedly looked at my watch, 10 or 15 seconds after having last checked it, and tried my best to hurry through the mundane, even frivolous, task ahead of me. By the time we were driving home I was nearly beside myself with panicked frustration coupled with the irritation most searingly felt as an adolescent. On the car ride home I bluntly informed my boss that today would be the last day I would work for him. He chuckled and tried to reassure me, suggested that I cool off, relax, and continue to work for him another day. He told me that I would be able to earn money. But to my adolescent mind, nothing was more sacred to me than a free and unscheduled summer, and the thought of money making up for a lack of that seemed sacrilegious. That was the last day I washed windows for him.

These same feelings, these thoughts, these notions I believed I had buried years before came flooding back. I thought that having graduated from college, having seen friends get full-time jobs or attain prestigious internships, all these things, would be enough to compel me to seek the same at any cost. But after an hour commute to Midvale (with all the attendant micro-irritations of driving past countless McDonald’s, gas stations, and cookie-cutter office parks), and an hour sitting at my desk, I was already burdened by the banality of it all.

Now, at this point, I don’t disbelieve in the necessity of a career, and I begrudge the importance of holding a job, but I utterly reject that work has an intrinsically salvific power. At least work as it is commonly referred to as the ability to compel oneself to stay behind a desk for 8 hours, to strive ceaselessly for “productivity” and “efficiency” to produce a “deliverable.” This all seem to be Orwellian double-speak seemingly designed to devolve man into machine. What if truly proper work is to stare thoughtfully into the sky while walking through a forest of quaking aspens?

I believe the easiest way to tease out the meaning around us is to ensure our terms are properly defined. What if we describe work beyond its dictionary entry (activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result) and ascribe to it any activity that is sympathetic or cultivating to the human condition. In that way it paradoxically becomes more expansive and more selective. What makes us more human will not (necessarily) be one’s ability to scoop coal out of the ground but one’s ability to think clearly about our place in this world and universe. This form of work could be a quiet stroll in nature, or poring over a thought-provoking essay–in fact it is essentially limitless in its variety according to personal preference. The point is that it helps us avoid a lazy, and disheartening, definition of work and may point us to more enlightened, feeling, and human lives. I don’t mean to discredit the menial tasks, or chores (or whatever you want to call them), that make our modern society function, but I wouldn’t want to confuse these with assignments and projects that elevate and ennoble the human mind and spirit. Perhaps a complete life is mixed with these menial tasks and what I have tried to define as a nobler, more expansive view of work. Yet, I would submit, it is never happily lived without a significant amount of passionate striving toward a goal that, whatever its end result, along the way makes one more capable of acting, feeling, and thinking in creative, compassionate, and profound ways. In other words, work, but work defined up. A work elevated and ennobled, distinct– semantically, symbolically, and literally–from simply the ability to make commutes, complete shifts, and fulfill rote tasks.

An Eschatology of Hope

Growing up as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints I have been intrigued to see how world-views can vary so much by congregant. For ease of analysis I would break down these distinctive paradigms into two camps. One is the perspective that the world is quickly becoming more and more evil and that whatever good still in the world is under near-constant siege. In this vision, any political good enacted by those with good and righteous intentions is mostly a pyrrhic victory. This is a mostly “black and white” perspective. There may be some nuance in this vision, but not enough to really matter. The second perspective is defined in nuance. In accordance with church orthodoxy it is still understood that there is, or will be, a certain culture, or sub-culture, arcing towards immorality and permissiveness. But, at the same time, this belief coexists with the understanding that our world is quickly becoming safer, more tolerant, and, generally, a better place to live. Nonetheless, there is obviously an amount of cognitive dissonance in holding these two sometimes conflicting ideas as true.

I believe that the reason that these two camps have formed is due to fundamentally distinct interpretations of our eschatology (the theology of death, judgment, and the destiny of the soul). There is some interesting reading to be done on the differences between postmillenialism, premillenialism, and amillenialism but it is quite clear that, doctrinally, we believe in premillenialism, in that we believe Christ will come before the thousand years of peace alluded to in the book of Revelations.

Disregarding the semantic arguments encircling the distinct views of the millenium, there is a common apocalyptic world-view that can take root as a result of premillenial eschatology. I find this hopeless and gloomy view illogical, and wholly uncharacteristic of Christian understanding. Nevertheless, I would identify a certain type of premillenialism as a cause of this. It is a premillenialism that has evolved into a siege-like mentality. Everything and anything is reduced to a cosmic and Manicheaen duel between good and evil. In this way we reduce Satan, or any ultimate evil, to an easily studied caricature. In an assumption that any of his malign purposes can be easily discerned, we paint with broad strokes and ascribe his cunning to any movement or happening not easily understood.

There are many unfortunate consequences of such a paradigm. Foremost, any belief in the forward progress of mankind is discarded. This is a crippling loss, and it permits a politics of cynicism and obstruction to flourish. Cynicism, because any social or political innovation that purports to progress our civilization will be met with skepticism of some ulterior motive, or perhaps simple disbelief. And obstruction, because this doomsday vision enables only this tool for doing good. Because (according to this view) the world is becoming ever worse, one must jam up the levers of political power and procrastinate the apocalypse (while converting ready souls).

I find this theology of apocalypse to be completely wretched. It promotes hopelessness, anxiety, and helplessness. It is utterly contrary to the empowering message of Jesus Christ, a message that preaches love, tolerance, action, faith, and hope. Instead, we need to wrest a message of hope from the premillenial eschatology. I don’t know exactly how that will be best be done, but I believe the task to be urgent.

Perhaps members of the restored Church of Jesus Christ, and all Christians as well, don’t take enough ownership of our theology. Sure, we have some variable level of knowledge of specific points of doctrine, but too often we don’t systematically develop these, and consequently our theology is threadbare and undeveloped. As I see it, our understood doctrine is as points of starry light in the night sky, but a true theology works as an organizing tool, a way to map and connect these points of light. I believe that each Christian should have their own theology, a way to make sense of the often confusing array of doctrine, a method to bring order to the chaos. For this is a truly Christian task, an emulation of God’s work. I don’t mean to say that each believer can pick and choose their own doctrine, but, just as each Gospel writer inserted their personality, their soul, into the narrative, so must we develop a theology that reflects Christ, his doctrine, and our personality. In so doing we will create a theology, and eschatology, not of despair and destruction, but of vibrant hope and renewal.