Ennoble Your Work

“Our works do not ennoble us; but we must ennoble our works.”

Meister Eckhart

Lately I’ve been spending some time with Meister Eckhart, a 13th century German priest and mystic. Eckhart was rather controversial, as are most mystics, and he even had to defend himself against charges of heresy toward the end of his life (he was found innocent).

What attracts me to Eckhart is his focus on being grounded in God and God being grounded in us. He encourages us to shift through the layers society creates for us (e.g. father, administrator, accordion-lover, reader, husband, son, etc.) to get to our “ground,” which is God. In other words, all that we are should be based on our relationship with God.

The quote above is one we hear echoed in different ways throughout Christianity. And here he uses the word “works” to talk about our actions, not specifically our jobs. But our jobs are also our “works” in that all we do, as Christians, is a reflection of our grounding in God. In some ways, it is the “Calvinistic work ethic” that is so ingrained in West Michigan, but Eckhart means more than just working hard. He wants us to “ennoble” our “works” and, thus, our work.

“Ennoble” means we “lend greater dignity or nobility of character to” whatever we do. We don’t just work hard, we ennoble our work with how we approach it. I think our office does a great job of this already, but it is something to keep in front of us at all times. And while some of this may be found in the little touches we do to make sure everyone’s needs are met, we ennoble our work by how we how treat our work, others, and even ourselves. There is dignity in all of our work, but it is possible to disparage our own efforts by dismissing or grousing about what needs to be done.

The first part of the quote is equally important. Our works (nor our “work”) do not ennoble us. Taken another way, we cannot be defined by our work because we are truly defined by God. It does not matter if you are the president of the college, on the administrative council, or just started working at Hope last week — your work does not define you. The president is no better than any of us in the eyes of God; it is important we do not slip into thinking that our work ennobles us. We ennoble our work.

Challenge yourself to see how you can approach work as not just a job to be done, but an experience you can ennoble. If we take Eckhart’s teaching to heart, we recognize that all we do should be grounded in God who is grounded in us. If all that comes out of us arises from that basic understanding, we ennoble all we do in life.