Sweat of the Brow
Whenever I get into the Big City I like to grab breakfast at one of my favourite “greasy spoon” diners. In truth, the place is pretty spotless, but you know the genre– lots of hot coffee, plates loaded with eggs over easy, bacon, homefries. Waitresses who know everyone by first name and reputation. And loud country music.
Such places are a slice of heaven.
One of my favourite pastimes at The Diner is eavesdropping. More often than not the next table has a crowd of tradesmen catching a late breakfast. The guys.
Sometimes they talk about last night’s party, sometimes they talk about their kids, or a fast snowmobile (aka “sled”), but invariably they come back to their work. Sometimes complaining about a boss or a customer. Sometimes describing a particularly complex or difficult job. Often about jobsite injuries, the cold, the heat, the long hours…
But despite all the focus on the physical side of their work, what always glimmers through is the pride of work, not even the physical feats, but about challenges met and overcome. Problems faced, analysed, and solved. Victories not of brawn, but of brain. Outsmarting hard challenges.
Because these men (it’s still mostly a boy’s world) are professionals. They face and they solve problems that only they can solve, because of their aptitudes, their experience, and their training.
In our society we impose a pecking order of the professions and usually assign compensation accordingly. We wouldn’t say it out loud, but we think to ourselves that the lawyer is more of a professional than the bricklayer. But when I’m walking down Elgin Street, I’m really glad that the bricklayer plying his craft eight stories above my head is the pro he needs to be.
Ditto when I rely on my brakes in an awkward traffic situation. Ditto when the linesmen are out in a blizzard restoring electric power.
The guys in the safety vests and hard hats are professionals, every bit as much as those of us in air conditioned offices. After all, when the air conditioning doesn’t work, we’re looking for someone with the aptitude, experience, and training to solve our problem. Quickly.
And that someone, using his Giftings, is a professional.