dual personalities

This is the gospel of labor—ring it,

Ye bells of the kirk

The Lord of Love came down from above

To live with the men who work.

This is the rose he planted, here

In the thorn-cursed soil;

Heaven is blest with perfect rest, but

The blessing of earth is toil.

–Henry Van Dyke

(found on the Three Iron Nails blog)

Vincent Van Gogh, The Sower (1988)

“The Christian shoemaker does his duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship.”

–Martin Luther

“Good human work honors God’s work. Good work uses no thing without respect, both for what it is in itself and for its origin. It uses neither tool nor material that it does not respect and that it does not love. It honors nature as a great mystery and power, as an indispensable teacher, and as the inescapable judge of all work of human hands. It does not dissociate life and work, or pleasure and work, or love and work, or usefulness and beauty. To work without pleasure or affection, to make a product that is not both useful and beautiful, is to dishonor God, nature, the thing that is made, and whomever it is made for. This is blasphemy: to make shoddy work of the work of God. But such blasphemy is not possible when the entire Creation is understood as holy and when the works of God are understood as embodying and thus revealing His spirit.”

–Wendell Berry (Christianity and the Survival of Creation)

I have a stressful day ahead at work today. Pray and work. All will be well!