Do and Dye
Literary biographer Stephen Greenblatt intersects again with more lives than just Shakespeare's in his Will in the World. Writing on the impact of his subject's chosen profession on Shakespeare's self-criticism, Greenblatt discerns, "That Shakespeare was acutely aware of this stigma can be surmised from the sonnets, where he writes that, like the dyer's hand, he has been stained by the medium he has worked in."
So have we all. Our hands have been stained, our minds have been imprinted, by the medium in which we have worked. The education we acquire in order to qualify for a career seems to narrow what we notice. As Greenblatt says elsewhere, the vocabulary of our daily dealings seems to impact how we describe everything else. We readily, subtly, over time associate the work we do with literal life and death, and so we begin to take on the assumptions about workplace, it seems, as the cost of doing business.
Removed from any particular workplace, we can begin to see the stubborn impact of the dye in which we worked there. With its timelessness, God's Word is particularly adept at revealing the residual stamp. Thus, only about twelve hours lapsed between Greenblatt's appropriation of Shakespeare's inky image and its application in my one-verse-per-day crawl through Luke's Gospel. My daily portion there came from the first part of Luke 16:21, which I'll couple with the verse before it in the New King James Version for context's sake. In telling the story of the rich man and the beggar, Jesus reveals, "But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his (the rich man's) gate, desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table."
As I am unemployed and we are still tithing and giving on what income remains, this dyer's hands might, for once, pass inspection without stain. Negative. Eight months away from working in a helping profession isn't enough for me to repress the confession that there is dye on my hands. That I might have been the (relatively) rich guy in this parable who could have helped more is too predictable to penetrate much. My hands are dyed instead with assumptions that contradict Lazarus's reasonable, humble desire as Jesus expresses it in Luke 16:21. He wants crumbs. What I could have given, can still give, and wouldn't miss would make a difference to somebody in Lazarus' situation.
I'm ready to rally my self-defense with systemic protests. In my bureaucratic working role, I couldn't fix the world. I was vaguely aware of a variety and volume of needs, and this was enough for the onset of inertia. I did my job, at times did it well, but I often kept myself from going the extra mile because I couldn't go another mile after that, and another mile after that. Too often I imposed my own whinier tendencies on clients or students who had not yet been given a chance to complain or say thank you.
Where an extra crumb of human concern, an extra question, an extra moment to listen, might have made a massive difference, too often I failed to give it because I couldn't spare a whole loaf. I failed to do something extra because I couldn't do everything extra, and I wanted to forestall the awkwardness of saying no in some extreme case that may or may not ever present itself.
Blessedly, the same One Who allowed us to listen in on the modest mind of Lazarus also guarantees to transform the Christian's thinking, and clean his or her hands. In fact, by pleading in Philippians 2:5, "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus," Paul is telling us it takes deliberate resistance NOT to have the mind of Christ. Let it happen. Let HIM happen. As strong an impression as the dye and doings of this world make, and Paul is grappling with that very selfishness in this passage, Christ's grace is more indelible. He, after all, brought the uncorrupted mindset of work and worship that prevails in Heaven down to Earth, and kept it through taking on the form of a servant of no reputation (verse seven) and all the way to execution on our behalf according to verse eight. The dye of days and decades ground into our skin and minds will give way, at last, to Him Who died on the cross.
So have we all. Our hands have been stained, our minds have been imprinted, by the medium in which we have worked. The education we acquire in order to qualify for a career seems to narrow what we notice. As Greenblatt says elsewhere, the vocabulary of our daily dealings seems to impact how we describe everything else. We readily, subtly, over time associate the work we do with literal life and death, and so we begin to take on the assumptions about workplace, it seems, as the cost of doing business.
Removed from any particular workplace, we can begin to see the stubborn impact of the dye in which we worked there. With its timelessness, God's Word is particularly adept at revealing the residual stamp. Thus, only about twelve hours lapsed between Greenblatt's appropriation of Shakespeare's inky image and its application in my one-verse-per-day crawl through Luke's Gospel. My daily portion there came from the first part of Luke 16:21, which I'll couple with the verse before it in the New King James Version for context's sake. In telling the story of the rich man and the beggar, Jesus reveals, "But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his (the rich man's) gate, desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table."
As I am unemployed and we are still tithing and giving on what income remains, this dyer's hands might, for once, pass inspection without stain. Negative. Eight months away from working in a helping profession isn't enough for me to repress the confession that there is dye on my hands. That I might have been the (relatively) rich guy in this parable who could have helped more is too predictable to penetrate much. My hands are dyed instead with assumptions that contradict Lazarus's reasonable, humble desire as Jesus expresses it in Luke 16:21. He wants crumbs. What I could have given, can still give, and wouldn't miss would make a difference to somebody in Lazarus' situation.
I'm ready to rally my self-defense with systemic protests. In my bureaucratic working role, I couldn't fix the world. I was vaguely aware of a variety and volume of needs, and this was enough for the onset of inertia. I did my job, at times did it well, but I often kept myself from going the extra mile because I couldn't go another mile after that, and another mile after that. Too often I imposed my own whinier tendencies on clients or students who had not yet been given a chance to complain or say thank you.
Where an extra crumb of human concern, an extra question, an extra moment to listen, might have made a massive difference, too often I failed to give it because I couldn't spare a whole loaf. I failed to do something extra because I couldn't do everything extra, and I wanted to forestall the awkwardness of saying no in some extreme case that may or may not ever present itself.
Blessedly, the same One Who allowed us to listen in on the modest mind of Lazarus also guarantees to transform the Christian's thinking, and clean his or her hands. In fact, by pleading in Philippians 2:5, "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus," Paul is telling us it takes deliberate resistance NOT to have the mind of Christ. Let it happen. Let HIM happen. As strong an impression as the dye and doings of this world make, and Paul is grappling with that very selfishness in this passage, Christ's grace is more indelible. He, after all, brought the uncorrupted mindset of work and worship that prevails in Heaven down to Earth, and kept it through taking on the form of a servant of no reputation (verse seven) and all the way to execution on our behalf according to verse eight. The dye of days and decades ground into our skin and minds will give way, at last, to Him Who died on the cross.
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