An Episcopalian Priest and theologian, Matthew Fox Began His Ca

The most important work we might turn our attention to, I believe, is work on the human being itself—on the inner work of being human. Scientist Peter Russell wrote, several decades ago, that we need a project to explore human consciousness comparable to the Manhattan Project of seventy years ago. Why is this work so pressing? Because we are the problem. Human beings are the ones destroying our own habitat and the habitats of countless other creatures by our blindness, greed, and violence. We need a massive investment of talent and discipline in our inner lives. When we do this, we will find some solutions for the overwhelming issues of violence and self-destruction; of internalized oppression and external acts of oppression; of racism and sexism; homophobia and fear that seems to overwhelm our species and play out in intergenerational cycles of abuse—physical, sexual, emotional, and religious.

When enough of us have tended to our inner work, then the process of converting jobs to work and inventing new work can begin to be fruitful. We convert jobs to work by understanding the service aspect of even the humblest occupation, such as washing windows, sweeping floors, or even changing diapers. This understanding comes with spiritual practice. As Wendell Berry points out, all work contains drudgery; the issue is whether it holds meaning or not. Those who love a child don’t resent changing her diaper. Those who believe in an enterprise don’t mind taking out its garbage or sweeping its floors.

We invent new work in response to the needs of our times—such as helping people transition to a less consumeristic, more sustainable way of living; re-educating people in traditional simple living skills; developing new technologies to convert waste into usable materials; retooling our economy to run on renewable energy sources; repairing and healing our polluted oceans, rivers, and lakes; reforesting our denuded hillsides; paying our artists and musicians and caregivers, and so on.

One of the important images I’ve seen in years occurred in the last few months and was posted to the Internet. It was taken by a satellite that left the solar system and looked back, taking a picture of the Earth, its home. The Earth is visible as just a speck among many lighted specks, but an arrow identifies it. I think that photo needs to become as iconic an image as the photograph of the Earth from the moon taken by astronauts 45 years ago. When you realize that from space the Earth looks like a speck, indistinguishable from countless other specks, it hits you just how unique and special our speck is. There may be millions of other specks out there, but not one that we knowof possesses the conditions suitable for human habitation.  A relative few may possess the potential for life, perhaps, but so far as we know there’s nothing quite like Earth—with its beauty and diversity of life—anywhere else in the universe. The perspective you can get from an iconic image like that has the potential to slow our reptilian brains down a bit and enable us to feel the awe and gratitude our situation really requires…and then, of course, to treat our precious speck—and the other beings we share it with—with the kind of reverence they deserve.

The industrial era work metaphor is running out of steam, even in the so-called First World. The basics of human living, including work, healthcare, politics, and education are increasingly beyond the grasp of most people. A new era is upon us, whether we’re ready for it, or not. The wounded Earth, the billion unemployed, the billions of despairing young people who see few prospects for either work or jobs, and the needs of other species who are going extinct at an unprecedented rate, are calling upon us to create a new economics and a new way of defining work.

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For more inspiration join this Saturday's Awakin Call with Mathew Fox -- Fidelity vs Faith: Bowing to the Heart over Authority. RSVP and more info here.