On-Line Resources for Spirituality@Work     April 2008

By Woodeene Koenig-Bricker

I’m a bit discombobulated this spring and I’ve finally figured out why.  Not only is daylight savings time earlier than it has been in the past, but Easter was the earliest you or I will ever experience.  The next time Easter will be this early will be 2228. The last time it was this early was 1913.

While this is interesting trivia, it has some real effects on the church calendar.  With the Easter season starting and ending so early, we are going to have a very long unbroken stretch of Ordinary Time.  In fact, we won’t see a longer stretch of Ordinary Time again until 2285 and I don’t know about you, but I’m not expecting to be around for that!

Because we have this longer than usual period of non-celebratory time, we also have a bit more time (hopefully) to look at how we combine our spiritual life with our work life.   Here are a few on-line resources that you might want to check out.  These do come with a caveat:  only one is specifically Catholic and some of them fall into that vague category of “spiritual, but not religious.”  Certainly some of the ideas don’t meld with our Catholic teachings and traditions, but others, including ways to integrate your faith with your job, supporting co-workers in their journeys and being open to transformation are applicable to all of us. 

This year, use the gift of extra Ordinary Time to do a little extraordinary reading on how your faith and your work intersect.

http://www.actapublications.com/spiritwork.html

Gregory F. Augustine Pierce, the president of ACTA Publications and the author of Spirituality @ Work: 10 Ways to Balance your Life On-the-Job presents a very Catholic look at spirituality and our jobs.  You can join a free on-line newsletter and on-line dialog at this site.  If you don’t go to any other site, go here…and then bookmark it and revisit whenever you need a little boost.

http://www.spiritualityatwork.com/home.shtml

Spirituality at Work is an organization of business professionals committed to, in their words, “the awakening of soul at work” and “ the transformation of work and the workplace into arenas where life is nourished.”  In particular, I found the section on “Soul Bytes,” quotes and questions about work and life to be good fodder for journaling and prayer.

http://www.cfsaw.org/index.htm

The Center for Spirituality at Work is primarily for Spiritual Directors but the stories of inspirational people are, well, inspiring.  The section on the importance of mentoring contains useful ideas that could serve as a springboard for discussion or even starting a mentoring program of your own.

http://www.spiritatwork.org

Spirit at Work calls itself a “faith-neutral” site dedicated to supporting “global transformation by integrating spirituality and the workplace.” What I liked best was their bookstore which has one of the best collections of books on ethics, purpose, goals and spirituality in the marketplace that I’ve seen.  It’s worth clicking just to check them out.

Email the author at woodeene@comcast.net.