Life is a Drudgery

Last updated on: February 4, 2024 at 9:19 am by Ben Bongers KM

0 Comments

Life is a Drudgery 2024-02-01T09:57:52-06:00 Ben Bongers KM

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Life is a Drudgery

“Is not life on earth a drudgery?” Job, the ever Eeyore, starts chapter 7 with this comment. Life isn’t always a party, and you can sometimes feel that way, doing the same thing day in and day out, never breaking free and living a different life. But what makes life a “drudgery?” Is it what we are doing, or is it our perspective on what we do?

A Little Story

As an opera singer, I have a lot of singer friends. I have one in particular, a very good tenor friend who was a few years older than me and had been singing professionally since he was fresh out of college. He had sung in every great house in the world—La Scala in Milan, Palais Garnier in Paris, the Sydney Opera House in Australia, the Metropolitan in New York… He was a world-class talent with a world-class voice and attitude.

A few years back, I realized I hadn’t heard from him in a while and started asking around. No one knew what happened to him. It was as if he’d fallen off the face of the planet. We all began to ask, “Did he die? Is he locked up? Did he retire to a private island somewhere out of touch?”

That’s when it happened. By chance, I was watching a fluff story on the national news and saw someone who looked remarkably like my friend. It seemed he was now a bus driver for a rural school in the Northeast! He made national news as a personal interest story because he would sing for the kids on the bus to keep them from being too rowdy on his route. I wrote his old agent to get his email address, and it didn’t take long for me to send him a quick note to find out what had happened. Did he lose his voice? Was he sick? What happened?

Public Domain

Some people’s offices are cubical, and others are delivery vehicles. And others, well… places most people dream of. Or do they?

It took a few weeks, but he finally wrote back the following:

“Hey!

Sorry, I’ve been out of touch, but I just couldn’t do it anymore. I started losing my family and myself. You know how it is, long hours, different countries, not seeing your family, not being on the same schedule as them. Life became drudgery.

So, one day, I called my agent and said, ‘That’s it, I’m out.’ They thought I was crazy, but it’s the best move I ever made. Yes, I’ve traded one drudgery for another, but it’s a drudgery that makes me happy. I get to see my wife and kids at the end of the day. I get to watch a ballgame or two on the weekend; I get to have a real life. I know you know what I’m talking about.

When I get bored, I just open up and sing a tune for the best audience I’ve ever had, a bunch of impressionable kids who haven’t got a lot in their lives…”

My friend went on to tell me of some of the family issues of some of the kids he transports and how just singing a song for them can lift their spirits for a few minutes on their way to school or on their way home. He spoke of some of the parents being so bored with the drudgery of their lives that they are high on drugs or alcohol from when they get off work till, they go back in, not realizing that it’s affecting the way their kids see them and their own lives to come. He finished the email by saying, “If I can change the trajectory of one kid’s life by singing a tune on a bus, I feel the change was worth it.”

Public Domain

Sometimes, the job that looks like it’s for the birds to others allows the inner eagle to soar.

Job spoke of “life’s drudgery” in the 7th Chapter of Job, but Paul also talks about the “obligation… imposed on [him]” (1 Corinthians 9: 16). His life, too, was nothing but spreading the Word of God and telling of the life of Jesus to any and all. Was he tired? Yup. Did he tell the same stories over and over and over? Absolutely. Did he travel constantly, not being able to be with family or friends? Sound familiar?

What about Jesus? Did he live a life of drudgery? Mark 1: 29-39 gives us a laundry list of Jesus’s day. He cured Simon’s mother of a fever, cured many of the sick in the area, cast out demons, and finally got to rest by going out alone to pray and recharge His batteries—only to get up the next day and “go on to a nearby village” and do it again. In a word, drudgery.

You must ask the question: did Job, Paul, and Jesus find purpose in their drudgery? Did they find a reason to keep going? You would think, “Yes,” because these were God’s Supermen. But Job didn’t at first. He asks in Job 6: 9, “that God would be willing to crush me, to let loose his hand and cut off my life!” Paul was stoned, in shipwrecks, and imprisoned several times. Jesus knew what His final end would be, but he was human as well as divine. He felt all we do. So He kept working in the drudgery anyway to His life’s final goal.

Just like my singer friend, Job, Paul, and Jesus found something sacred in their drudgery. They found meaning, reason, and, yes, purpose. So, when you are burnt out, bored, stuck in your day, stop and ask the question. “What’s my purpose? What am I doing for God and others today? Tomorrow? If you ask and listen, He will tell you… Even if it is just driving a bus.

Progressive Christian

About Ben Bongers KM

Ben Bongers was an international operatic tenor and practicing sommelier for 30 years based in San Francisco, CA, and Europe. He has written monthly articles for trade magazines in wine and singing over a long and lustrous career. After becoming a semi-full-time caretaker for his parents, he earned an MA in Gerontology (the study of aging and care) and was asked to publish in an eldercare textbook in 2020. He has written several books, all published by EnRoute Books and Media. His first novel, THE SAINT NICHOLAS SOCIETY, has won many awards, and his other two, TRUE LOVE—12 Christmas Stories My True Love Gave to Me, and THE FARMER, THE MINER, THE ARTISAN (a children’s book) are both up for writing awards. Ben is a Knight in the Order of Malta and helped start an overnight homeless shelter at his San Francisco, CA parish. Today, he is a Permanent Diaconate Candidate in Kansas City, MO. You can read more about the author here.

Previous Post

February 1, 2024

“Sorry, I can’t help. You’re homeless.” (2 of 3)