Or, you could get a real job

I have to actively remind myself sometimes that my job, taking care of a little family, is honorable and adequate work. It's just so much snazzier to be a suit in DC.


Brian Brown calls it "Saving the World, Professionalized." He's got a fascinating little article on how Emma was a professional charity-giver, but Mr. Knightley, in the course of being a farmer, had a much better handle on what people really needed. Brown notes the cool factor in working (salaried) for nonprofit agencies and thinks we shouldn't all turn up our noses at working for money.

All well and good. I flipped to the next post in my reader, one from a missionary engineer I know in South Sudan. She quotes a book she's reading:

"Post-conflict situations need squads of bricklayers, plumbers, welders, and so forth, who set about training young men. Unfortunately, it is too mundane for the development agencies to organize it. We need Bricklayers Without Borders."

Perfect timing! I'm sensing a wavelength here. I should go do something useful. Like go to bed, so I can clean house in the morning.

On the subject of families, and not at all about unglamorous work, this was so real. I laughed and laughed.