Continuing from Revealing Ourselves—Revealing God II and the book “The Holiness of Everyday Life” author Joan B. MacDonald shared:
. . . . I work in a Hospital laboratory. The hospital is large, but the laboratory is isolated, with only fifteen employees. Among them are several agnostics, an atheist, two born-again Christians, three Jews, a Muslim, and a Hindu.
One of them is a woman who works full-time, has three children, is a liberal Unitarian, and, in spite of her busy schedule, bakes bread once a month and takes it to a shelter for homeless women in downtown Boston.
One of them is a woman who works part-time, has two children, and attends school part-time earning a degree in landscape architecture. Several years ago she offered her time to design and help plant a garden outside the hospital’s Cancer Care Center. Each year she supervises volunteers in planting hundreds of bulbs in the garden.
One of them is a born-again Christian who is a former drug addict and homosexual. She now teaches a Bible study group at a local prison each week. She taught me more about the relationship between grace and works than a dozen Sunday School lessons.
All three Jewish people who work on my shift make it a point to volunteer to work on Christmas and Easter so their Christian co-workers can have those days off.
My view of history was deepened in a discussion with a Jewish co-worker who had lived in Israel for several years.
I was introduced to a wealth of wonderful spirit-centered books through people at work. Because of co-workers, I have read such authors as Madeline L’Engle, Polly Berends, C. S. Lewis, and Frederich Beuchner.
It was a Catholic Co-worker who helped a technician on the verge of a nervous breakdown one night. When I complimented her later, she said, “My heart just went out to her. What else could I do?” She taught me how to be responsive to need.
One winter we had an inordinate amount of backbiting and gossip in the lab between two cliques. I watched a co-worker “clique-hop” back and forth between the two groups, smoothing things out. She taught me what it means to be a peacemaker. Time and again at work, my understanding of what it means to live the gospel, to follow Christ and to be a child of God has been redefined, expanded and enlarged. It is through these experiences of diverse people from diverse backgrounds that I have come to understand the truth of the scripture in Acts that opens this book: “He made from all nations of men; that they might seek God!”
As an aside I want you to know that the people who have taught me these wonderful lessons are the same ones who occasionally swear or tell dirty stories. Do I mind? Well, maybe I do now and then, but I love these people. I cherish what they have taught me. I value who I have become because of their example. And in their lives and their stories, I see the hand of God, ~Joan B. MacDonald, The Holiness of Everyday Life (Deseret Book, 1995), 10-12
