day 2638: Peace and Quiet

“Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands, just as we instructed you before.”

Yesterday, I wrote of Salt and Peace.  Today, let’s pick up with Peace and add Quiet. The workplace has changed a lot over the past 30 years.  We went from offices to cubicles, from cubicles to open working spaces, from open working spaces to hoteling, from hoteling to working at home, from working at home to shared working spaces with other companies like WeWork buildings  But all along, we have sought a place for peace and quiet to think and be most productive.  Where once we closed the door to get our work done, today we might put in our airbuds or disappear all together and end up in a corner somewhere to be unseen and for others to be unheard.  Regardless, we all need some peace and quiet every now and then and when we can give it to others, it’s a real gift.

I have long been curious about the verse above  because on the surface when read it is telling us to go to work in almost a solitary way. But, I have come to realize that this verse can be situational and relative to a person’s talents and job. Patti and I watched the American Film Institute (AFI) Lifetime Achievement ceremony for Denzel Washington.  Few would say, on the surface, that he would embody the lesson to the Thessalonians. But, if you listen closely, he is a man of faith, living his life and going about his own business, his own craft, working with his skills given and creating peace and quiet around him. If a bigger than life person like Denzel can find that peace and quiet, so we can we, in any job that we are given.

Reference:  1 Thessalonians 4:11 (New Living Translation)