Sunday, February 08, 2009

quote of the week: Dorothy Sayers on vocation

In the potent words of Dorothy Sayers, our vocation
is not, primarily, a thing one does to live, but the thing one lives to do. It is, or it should be, the full expression of the worker's faculties, the thing in which he finds spiritual, mental, and bodily satisfaction, and the medium in which he offers himself to God.

It is the business of the Church to recognize that the secular vocation, as such, is sacred.
Dorothy Sayers from Creed or Chaos?, 6, quoted by Scot McKnight in The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others, 81.

5 comments:

Peach said...

I read Dorothy L Sayers play 'The Man born to be King' when I was very young and it had a profound effect of me. She's an intersting woman far beyond her Wimsey mysteries.

Thank you for your kind comments on my blog. And yes....it does rain here...continually...

Forty shades of green, and forty types of raincoats too....

Ted M. Gossard said...

Peach,
Well, I hope you folks do get some dry seasons. I guess Ireland and green go together well for a reason more than just religious.

I actually haven't read Dorothy Sayers at all, but I ought to.

Bob Robinson said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bob Robinson said...

More from Dorothy Sayers, Creed or Chaos:
"We have all got it fixed in our heads that the proper end of work is to be paid for... But if our proposition is true, this does not follow at all... For (the worker's) work is the measure of his life, and his satisfaction is found in the fulfillment of his own nature, and in contemplation of the perfection of his work. That, in practice, there is this satisfaction, is shown in the mere fact that a man will put loving labor into some hobby which can never bring him any economically adequate return. His satisfaction comes, in the godlike manner, from looking upon what he has made and finding it very good." (p. 47)

Ted M. Gossard said...

Bob,
Excellent quote from Dorothy Sayers.

Should be an aspect of all our work, really. And of our lives.

Thanks.