5.10.2012

Sayers on Work Worth Doing

'The habit of thinking about work as something one does to make money is so ingrained in us that we can scarcely imagine what a revolutionary change it would be to think about it instead in terms of the work done. To do so would mean taking the attitude of mind we reserve for our unpaid work – our hobbies, our leisure interests, the things we make and do for pleasure – and making that the standard of all our judgments about things and people.

'We should ask . . .

  • of an enterprise, not “will it pay?” but “is it good?”; 
  • of a man, not “what does he make?” but “what is his work worth?”; 
  • of goods, not “Can we induce people to buy them?” but “are they useful things well made?”; 
  • of employment, not “how much a week?” but “will it exercise my faculties to the utmost?”' 

--Dorothy Sayers in "Why Work" [formatting mine]

5.08.2012

Sayers on Consumption and Production

"A society in which consumption has to be artificially stimulated in order to keep
production going is a society founded on trash and waste, and such a society is a house
built upon sand."  --Dorothy Sayers in her excellent article "Why Work"

5.03.2012

Suffering and Semninary

A reoccurring thought in seminary: My professors cannot talk about suffering enough.

Thank you Brian Vickers for teaching me this by talking of and praying about suffering so well and so often.

5.01.2012

A Puritan Understanding of the Church

"If the covenant conception is one pointer to the Puritan definition of the church, the other is the concern for visible sainthood."

--Horton Davies, The Worship of the American Puritans, 27