Love:Work - Reflections and Prayers for a World at Work
Here at last is a book of reflections and prayers which are intended as a resource for working people, to help transform them, their attitude to work, their relationships with colleagues and their workplaces. The style is reminiscent of Michel Quoist’s “Prayers of Life”: indeed, they share the same conviction that every aspect of life can be brought before God in prayer and that lives will be transfigured as we do.
Each of the ten sections is based on a brief commandment (“Be Diligent”, “Be Alert” etc.) which the Industrial Christian Fellowship offers as an easily remembered guide to life in the workplace. The five or six pages which begin each section offer a succinct introduction to each of these themes. As they do so, they very adequately and helpfully cover topic which longer books on faith in the workplace treat more extensively.
The prayers and reflections which follow contain immense wisdom, and would be helpful for the reader who faces difficult choices and situations in their work, as well as those whose work is more routine:
My diary may be filled by others;
My schedules set by systems beyond my control;
My shift patterns and working hours,
Might not be mine to question.
I can only serve the next customer in the line,
And take nothing but the next assignment that arrives.
But mine is the choice to live as a child of God this day;…
Some of the prayers are written in the form of Psalms, and many would be useful in public worship as prayers to help a congregation really engage with the life of the world. There’s a contrast here with the collects which many churches use which hardly touch the ground and look for a vague future fulfilment.
This is a valuable book to help bridge the gap between world of faith, which for all too many is private, and the public world of work and daily life. It is a book to read and then to keep close at hand.