Work: Round #3

"Work is part of our display, part of the parading of our beauty. It is the way we return our beauty to the community, and this is important both to the individual and to the community. Why? Because all beauty yearns to be conspicuous. Beauty and display go together; so, therefore, do beauty and work. Our work is meant to be beautiful, to increase the beauty of the world, of one another, of the worker."
Matthew Fox, The Reinvention of Work.

"Why do you worry about clothing? Have you noticed the flowers doing that? Oh, right - they aren't smart enough to worry. They're just happy being beautiful!"
Jesus (paraphrased)

I spent some time with a friend yesterday assembling musical instruments. The time flew by, and the results were rewarding. I feel deep gratitude for the chance to share in creating something of genuine material beauty.
I recall having always had the desire to make things. I also recall getting the message that there was something either too mysterious or too complicated or too pedestrian about shaping natural materials into things of beauty. These activities were fine as "hobbies", but they didn't constitute "real work". There was this abysmal gap between "work" and "art" as I was instructed, because art was more like play, like fun. And work is meant to be ... well ... work. Something we must do because we must eat and shop and have shelter and retire. One mustn't expect to derive pleasure or satisfaction or spiritual reward from work. One does one's work as one does one's duty, as an obligation imposed on one by virtue of one's birth.
Matt Fox comments on statement from Thomas Aquinas, a 13th century philosopher of the Church. Work is "display", like flowers and harmonies and Rose-breasted Grosbeak males exposing the deep red patch on their chests as if to say, "see my beauty!"
My geocosmystical work is to make beauty. Like a bird. Like a cherry blossom. Like a great joke or a poem or a play. Or a song. Yes ... a song! And a wooden instrument to decorate my song, and many voices and sounds and rhythms ... yes! A song!