Mundane Work...Meaningful Work

I've been at a retreat with students from my college. We explored "vocation" on this retreat (what else?). During this "vocation retreat", we talked about work. We discussed the importance of meaningful work. I've heard it said, and I believe it, that meaningful work is more important than any other aspect of a job.

I love my job. In fact, I've loved most of my jobs. However, right now, I'm doing several jobs, and I'm getting various levels of meaningfulness from these jobs. There are some jobs that I have, just so we can pay our regular expenses. Of course, I don't enjoy these jobs too much, but I know that I'm doing them so that my other half and I can live without stressing out about money too much (we still stress out about money, but it's not usually about basic expenses).

I also have a second job at my college. It's been fun to do, and I'm fairly good at it. I work with tutoring services. Basically, I hire tutors and set them up with students who need tutors. It's fun work, and my officemates are great. However, I can tell that this is (hopefully) not going to be something that I'll do for the rest of my career.

I'm beginning to understand that often meaningful work and money don't seem to go together. I realized that before, but it has become more apparent as I have to work through jobs I normally would not have chosen for myself.

I have too much going on in my head, but I don't have enough dedicated time to make them happen. What I really want is a patron. That's right. I want someone who can fund me while I work through my creative little ideas. Someone who can make my ideas come to reality (in a financial sense).

It's ironic that I help students understand the theological sense of vocation, while I still struggle with my own life, career, and vocation. Students seem to believe that there will be this sudden "Ah-ha" moment, when they understand what they are called to do. I have too much heart to tell them that I don't believe that to be true.

On the other hand, I LOVE the ambiguity. So, maybe it all works out in the end. It's late, and I'm sure I'll revisit this theme. So, goodnight.