Monday, August 2, 2010

Rewind to Chapter 1 :)

I'm a bit late in getting to this, so please pardon my delay. But as I was reading through chapter one I was struck by the his point of us working in order to have leisure and that the modern man struggle to grasp the ancient Greek concept of leisure and they would struggle to grasp our concept of work (p.20-21).

I may be missing it, but it seems a bit to me to have a negative understanding of work. I've been doing some reading in the Book of Genesis recently and thinking about this concept of Adam as being charged by God to work and guard the garden of Eden. Work then seems to be ordained by God for man to do. At the same time, leisure is commanded by the Lord, in the form of the prohibition of servile work on the Sabbath. It may be because I don't grasp the ancient concepts of work and leisure and the connection between the two (as Pieper mentions) but it seems as if too little value is being placed on the idea of work in the life of man. I know the CCC and JP2 probably have much to say about this, but I'm just curious... Thoughts?

1 comment:

Colonel4God said...

Personally, I believe he's trying to make a point. This is developing over the course of the work. I wouldn't say he has a negative understanding of work. I think he values work considerably. What he doesn't value is a "work only" mindset. I think wait and see.