Spirituality At Work Seeks Connection Between Work and Values

By Mark Hoerrner

It’s not an untimely question, the one about how one reconciles the day in and day out movements through a river of life with one’s ultimate purpose. Is this the right job for me? Am I happy in what I do? Is this all there is to me?

People have long been defined by their work roles in life rather than their spiritual awareness of who they are as a person. The web site, www.spiritualityatwork.com, seeks to inspire conversations about that very aspect of life with the hopes that visitors to the site will begin to "move…toward a deeper personal wholeness in relation to their work, to themselves and others, and to the Holy."

The site’s philosophy is simple:

"For many years," the site reads, "American workers have lacked a connection between the values of private life and the values of work and the workplace. Community, contribution, and cooperation may be important values at home, but in the workplace, rewards accrue from independence, competition, and acquisition. Work provides a livelihood, but at the same time is life-draining for many because it asks us to leave much of ourselves at the door when we come to work. People yearn for greater wholeness and integration of the "at-work selves" and their "at-home selves."

The non-denominational site is managed by Whitney Roberson, an Episcopal priest and associate pastor at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, Calif. She saw a need in the work community and seized upon the idea of helping people of all faiths reconcile faith with work and thereby helping people to find purpose.

"When I was in graduate school," Roberson writes, "I began to see the need for developing some way people could integrate their spiritual lives with their daily work lives. Traditional after-hours study groups seemed problematic: folks are just too weary at the end of the day, and on weekends, we're all trying to catch up with household and family concerns.

"In one of those flashes of insight that happen on occasion, it dawned on me that we didn't need to figure out a way to incorporate spirit into our daily lives: divine Mystery was already present in our work and our workplaces, waiting for us to notice! Why not create conversations in the middle of those work places and explore together how to enjoy and serve the Sacred already at work where we were? And so, Spirituality at Work was conceived."

The site offers guidance in how to start conversations in local areas and provides resources for people who wish to lead workshops on various topics. In addition, Roberson says the group offers small retreats for people looking to reconnect with the divine.

The conversations are the heart of the project and are not without limitations. Roberson wants the conversations to be participant-led, to be no more than about an hour and work to develop a sense of continuity for people in their work lives. The idea that work is somehow a separate chunk of who we are is broken down when one is able to develop their faith to the point where a clear understanding of purpose and place within the spiritual framework is achieved.