What Do You Do?

What makes us... us?

Is it what we do, who we are with, or what we believe?

The answer might depend on how we see ourselves in the mirror.

A reporter covering the dedication of a new bridge spanning a river interviewed three workers.

Q:  What do you do?  She asked the first.

A:  I'm a union man and make $36.50 an hour.

Q:  What do you do? She asked another.

A:  I build bridges.

Q:  What do you do?  She asked the third.

A:  I help God's children get safely from one side to the other across this beautiful bridge.

So which one are you?

I heard this illustration over the weekend while attending a funeral.

The deceased had been an engineer who worked in the Department of Transportation and saw his vocation from a big picture point of view, much like the third bridge worker.

Admittedly, there are days I feel like the steelworker, wondering how putting tab A into slot B amounts to a hill of beans in the scheme of everything.

There are some days, its possible to see a framework come together in what I'm doing and see a finished structure come into place.

Blessedly, there are also days when the day to day grind of the job creates a bigger picture of service to others and how the mission and values of the organization makes a difference in the world and my task (however significant it might be) is part of that mission.

That's the view I hope you have today and for most of your days.  And, if you start feeling like a widget-maker take a step back and look at the big picture and find yourself in a corner of that magnificent frame.