drudgery

• no such thing as menial labor in spiritual worlds

25:1.1Though de­nom­i­nated servi­tals, these “mid­way crea­tures” of the cen­tral uni­verse are not ser­vants in any me­nial sense of the word. In the spir­i­tual world there is no such thing as me­nial work; all ser­vice is sa­cred and ex­hil­a­rat­ing; nei­ther do the higher or­ders of be­ings look down upon the lower or­ders of ex­is­tence.

• men left routine d. to women

69:3.3All down through the ages the taboos have op­er­ated to keep woman strictly in her own field. Man has most self­ishly cho­sen the more agree­able work, leav­ing the rou­tine drudgery to woman. Man has al­ways been ashamed to do woman’s work, but woman has never shown any re­luc­tance to do­ing man’s work. But strange to re­cord, both men and women have al­ways worked to­gether in build­ing and fur­nish­ing the home.

• benumbing

70:2.176. The threat of stan­dard­ized in­dus­trial slav­ery, per­son­al­ity stag­na­tion. La­bor is en­nobling but drudgery is be­numb­ing.

• religion ennobles commonplace work; work as for God

100:0.2Spir­i­tual growth is mu­tu­ally stim­u­lated by in­ti­mate as­so­ci­a­tion with other re­li­gion­ists. Love sup­plies the soil for re­li­gious growth—an ob­jec­tive lure in the place of sub­jec­tive grat­i­fi­ca­tion—yet it yields the su­preme sub­jec­tive sat­is­fac­tion. And re­li­gion en­no­bles the com­mon­place drudgery of daily liv­ing.

• religion ennobles commonplace work; work as for God

133:4.8To the mis­tress of the Greek inn he said: “Min­is­ter your hos­pi­tal­ity as one who en­ter­tains the chil­dren of the Most High. El­e­vate the drudgery of your daily toil to the high lev­els of a fine art through the in­creas­ing re­al­iza­tion that you min­is­ter to God in the per­sons whom he in­dwells by his spirit which has de­scended to live within the hearts of men, thereby seek­ing to trans­form their minds and lead their souls to the knowl­edge of the Par­a­dise Fa­ther of all these be­stowed gifts of the di­vine spirit.”

• religion ennobles commonplace work; work as for God

181:2.19Je­sus then went over to the Al­pheus twins and, stand­ing be­tween them, said: “My lit­tle chil­dren, you are one of the three groups of broth­ers who chose to fol­low af­ter me. All six of you have done well to work in peace with your own flesh and blood, but none have done bet­ter than you. Hard times are just ahead of us. You may not un­der­stand all that will be­fall you and your breth­ren, but never doubt that you were once called to the work of the king­dom. For some time there will be no mul­ti­tudes to man­age, but do not be­come dis­cour­aged; when your life­work is fin­ished, I will re­ceive you on high, where in glory you shall tell of your sal­va­tion to se­raphic hosts and to mul­ti­tudes of the high Sons of God. Ded­i­cate your lives to the en­hance­ment of com­mon­place toil. Show all men on earth and the an­gels of heaven how cheer­fully and coura­geously mor­tal man can, af­ter hav­ing been called to work for a sea­son in the spe­cial ser­vice of God, re­turn to the labors of for­mer days. If, for the time be­ing, your work in the out­ward af­fairs of the king­dom should be com­pleted, you should go back to your for­mer labors with the new en­light­en­ment of the ex­pe­ri­ence of son­ship with God and with the ex­alted re­al­iza­tion that, to him who is God-know­ing, there is no such thing as com­mon la­bor or sec­u­lar toil. To you who have worked with me, all things have be­come sa­cred, and all earthly la­bor has be­come a ser­vice even to God the Fa­ther. And when you hear the news of the do­ings of your for­mer apos­tolic as­so­ciates, re­joice with them and con­tinue your daily work as those who wait upon God and serve while they wait. You have been my apos­tles, and you al­ways shall be, and I will re­mem­ber you in the king­dom to come.”

• religion ennobles commonplace work; work as for God

192:2.13Then he walked and talked with the Al­pheus twins, James and Ju­das, and speak­ing to both of them, he asked, “James and Ju­das, do you be­lieve in me?” And when they both an­swered, “Yes, Mas­ter, we do be­lieve,” he said: “I will soon leave you. You see that I have al­ready left you in the flesh. I tarry only a short time in this form be­fore I go to my Fa­ther. You be­lieve in me—you are my apos­tles, and you al­ways will be. Go on be­liev­ing and re­mem­ber­ing your as­so­ci­a­tion with me, when I am gone, and af­ter you have, per­chance, re­turned to the work you used to do be­fore you came to live with me. Never al­low a change in your out­ward work to in­flu­ence your al­le­giance. Have faith in God to the end of your days on earth. Never for­get that, when you are a faith son of God, all up­right work of the realm is sa­cred. Noth­ing which a son of God does can be com­mon. Do your work, there­fore, from this time on, as for God. And when you are through on this world, I have other and bet­ter worlds where you shall like­wise work for me. And in all of this work, on this world and on other worlds, I will work with you, and my spirit shall dwell within you.”