… It’s The Spirit With Which You Do It

MON., SEPT. 3, 1984, (Labor Day) 6:54 AM
FARM, STUDY

This, o son, is a spinoff from the sermon of yesterday morn, and a small contribution to the appreciation of this holiday. I just want to be sure that you hear this message about work in relation to spirit. Spirit is that which is continuous in eternal life, and there are many possible reactions to the almost infinite variety of work which is possible here in the earth.

So, the full title would be “It’s not what you do that matters, but it’s the spirit with which you do it that does.” In a strictly spiritual sense there is no division of work into important and unimportant. There certainly is no evaluation of work by the pay that is awarded for doing it. And there is no distinction that I recognize between work that involves the mind and that which requires the body.

As you might suspect, I call upon you to recognize the value of an holistic work pattern, with the truth of the title above still overarching. This means that some of your work must be intellectual, balanced by some that is physical. (You must write the rest of the newsletter and you must cut some more wood.) Another vital balance is emotional… you should do some work that causes you to feel emotionally, and still another is work that involves others in social interaction. Then, there is work that is dictated or influenced by the physical environment (sealing the gutters, for example, or repairing your pasture fence).

As in any holistic breakdown you always put the work “back together” and find that while one dimension may predominate it rarely is not joined by others in real life situations. And, overarching, as I said, is the spirit that is realized in and exerted in relation to any act of work. Mowing your lawn is a good example: it is essentially a physical task, necessitated by the environmental fact that grass grows, given the right balance of temperature and moisture. For you it has little social dimension… you like to do it yourself… but you do also like to have other people enjoy the vista of a neatly mowed lawn. There is virtually no intellectual element in this work, but it allows a time of musing or of actively developing ideas (which have nothing to do with the lawn). Emotionally, this is a task you generally love, unless there is some frustration such as a mower that won’t function properly.

But the dimension that interests Me is: what is the amount and quality of spirit that goes into this job? You generally perform it with a fully participating spirit, but you just could be more aware of this unifying power of spirit. Spirit can unify the appropriate dimensions and can transform an ordinary piece of work, enjoyable or less so, into an extraordinary experience, with Me actively involved. This is more difficult when the work is emotionally draining or unpleasant, or other combinations that make it difficult, but the application of spirit to any unit of work will make it an enriching personal experience, no matter what the objective results may seem to be.

This means that as you consciously bring your spirit to bear in a work situation, the result of doing the work, with spirit unifying and empowering, shall be a means of further spiritual growth. And as spirit develops in this way it becomes, even unconsciously, part of all that you do, so that virtually everything involves spirit and thus brings more growth of that spirit.