If only I was sharp enough to blog and talk at the same time.  This morning, as we worked our way through the research of Song of Songs, we faced a remarkable temptation to jump off-topic and chase the rabbit trail of this question:

     Within the Song of Songs' expressions of the joy of a joining of work and family in one location, does the Bible teach that the ideal structure is a world where families work alongside one another as they did before the Industrial Revolution ended it forever? 

     Because our job here this week is to move the research projects along in their progress towards a theology, and because the commission for this research didn't include answering that question, we ended up having to make it one of the sidebars where we invite future researchers to grapple with the issue. 

     For the record, I absolutely DO BELIEVE there is Biblical evidence that God intended families to labor together in their vocations, with obvious exceptions and variations under special callings by God.  Other scholars weighed in quickly on both sides of the issue, but I'm interested in your views.  Write and tell us what you think!

     Then when we hit the quote in Song of Songs: "Dark am I."  we struck off on a delightful exploration of the fact that the darker one's skin was in Solomon's day, the more it meant that person worked outside and the less highly they were thought of in society.  The fairer the skin, the more aristocratic and therefore more highly regarded.  Yet here is a woman who takes great joy in recognizing her beauty as marked by the skin and this labor she loves doing in concert with family.  We're exploring ways to encourage Christians who do work others think is demeaning to recognize their beauty and value is in seeing themselves and their labors as God does, and rejoicing in that beauty.  But we're also recognizing the many who are doing menial tasks not because they love them but because people or circumstances force them to do those jobs, and how do we help those people see their beauty and value still, despite not having the gift of loving what they're doing. 

     Do you see just how rich and exciting these conversations are?  How much fun it is to talk with others who live and breathe this kind of ministry, especially since we so often labor as writers and chaplains and even workers alongside people who would fall asleep out of boredom if we tried to tell them what kind of work we do ourselves. 

     I'm met with a rush of images, emotions and feelings, but with not enough "multi-tasking" skills to push them forward through the blog in a timely fashion.  So if you're patient, I'm confident this blog will be rolling them out long after we all get back to the United States next week.  Please keep us in your prayers. Tomorrow our guests outnumber us almost 14 to 1, and the fun and fellowship will mix with the tedious line-by-line evaluations of not only Scripture chapters and books, but the research on what those passages, chapters and books mean to workers.