The Work Spectrum

UV 559/10,000 The Work Spectrum Ecclesiastes 9 v 10 “ Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.” The colours of the rainbow can be used to explain different types of work: the violet indicates our spiritual work,the indigo indicates our efforts to use our talents and our natural gifting, the blue indicates our work to comfort others in their sadness and in alleviating their suffering, the green indicates our work to grow, intellectually, emotionally, financially, professionally ; the yellow indicates our efforts to become wiser and more understanding; the orange indicates our sacrificial work and finally, red indicates our work to spread the message of the hope of the gospel. We need to do all these types of work with all our might or with the sense of utmost commitment. Together, the colours of the spectrum represent the glory of God as well as a covenant promise of the Lord to be with us as we work, to partner with us, to lead and guide us and to bless the fruit of all our labour. The motivation for work is to do our utmost for the highest or as the Jesuit motto puts it, “ All for the greater glory of God.” In order to do our utmost, our work should be preceded by a great deal of planning and accompanied by a great deal of wisdom and knowledge. Wisdom is needed to take the right decisions in the different areas of work. Wisdom is valuable as it tells us what choices we are to make: the choice of words or tone or gesture in our communications with our co-workers, the choice of methods, the choice of team members and a myriad other choices that we make on a day- to- day basis. While wisdom is about judgement and insight to make correct decisions and to correct our course of action when we go wrong, knowledge is about the details, the nuts and bolts of different types of work. It is the hands on and hard-nosed application of what we know to what we do. Our work will be known by the results it brings even as a tree is known by its fruits. Our work has implications and effects beyond the grave. It will be tested in fire, remembered for its quality and rewarded for its results. The interplay of four four- letter words: “PRAY, PLAN, WORK, PLAY” constitutes life itself but it goes far beyond to have eternal consequences. Prateep V Philip