Charismatic work

“Work is charismatic,” writes Craig Keen in After Crucifixion (80-1). Keen elaborates in a beautiful passage:

“What we are given to work upon precedes us, a gift sent our way the first five days of creation, the days when the Spirit hovered over the face of the waters, before our dust first stirred. That we are given to work is a gift of the sixth day of creation, the day the Spirit is breathed into our nostrils and we rise to our feet. The work that we are given to do is a gift released on the seventh day of creation, the day that belies our ‘productivity’ and invites us to remember whose Spirit opens the way before us. . . . In doing and waiting, we are given to live for creation’s eighth day, the day the Spirit will have been poured upon all flesh and all will have shone – and even now on occasion and in anticipation shines – with a liberative glory full of grace and truth. The ‘was,’ ‘am,’ ‘are,’ and ‘will have been’ of these days are the passion of work. Work is the way we give ourselves away, the way we are given to be stretched out, the way we are given to take time.”