Dirt on my hands:

Something To Think About Dirt on my hands, 8/21

A popular "Reality" TV show features people who do dirty jobs.  I've watched episodes that featured dead fish, bat dung, sewage and grease of varioussorts. I don't remember who, but I heard a comedian say he didn't want any job that required him to wash his hands before he went to the bathroom.  I have a white-collar job; on occasion, I even wear a white collar, but I often find my hands dirty.  What to do when your hands are covered with grease, mud, or stains from pulling weeds, and you need to reach in your pocket to get your keys or phone, especially when you are wearing the pants that will cause the missus to give you the look over the stains over the pocket? Matthew Crawford talks about the loss of an ethic that has made our culture great.  He speaks of the "misguided separation of thinking from doing, the work of the hand from that of the mind. [He] shows us how such a partition, which began a century ago with the assembly line, degrades work for those on both sides of the divide."  (http://matthewbcrawford.com/)  Though Saul of Tarsus was on his way to becoming the leading rabbi of his day, he knew how to make tents, and did so on numerous occasions.  For most of His adult life Jesus was a carpenter, called by His town's residents "the carpenter."  Clearly he did not shrink from hard work. In my grandparents day there were few who didn't know what it meant to get their hands dirty.  Now many youngsters think such work is beneath them.  From the beginning God's intention was for His people to work with the ground (Genesis 2:15). Perhaps if more folk had dirty hands, we'd have less trouble dealing with dirty minds. Any how . . . It's Something to Think About.