Servant-plumber

“Would have made a good plumber, but was ruined by education”, or something to that effect is what I recall as Robert Greenleaf’s epitaph. The image above from AIM Electrical and Plumbing in Halifax, Nova Scotia was sent to me via email from a friend the other day and reminded me of Greenleaf’s final words.

The picture and the epitaph are good reminders of how we often get so caught up in what we do, that we forget about what it is we are called to do. Plumbers keep our plumbing working and they help us meet some of our most important needs. The folks at AIM know what they are called to do, and they obviously aren’t ashamed of it.

I joined a group of my coworkers over lunch hour today at an elementary school not too far from work. The school brings adult volunteers in to spend some time reading with the kids. I met up with my 5th grade student and we detoured into the school library to find a book.

While I was waiting for her to find a book, I picked one off the bookshelf and started paging through it. Shortly thereafter, the librarian scolded me with, “you’re busted, you are not supposed to take the books off the shelf.” I embarrassingly handed her the book and sulked off feeling as if I was back in grade school myself. I noticed a reminder scrawled on a whiteboard that indicated reading volunteers were not to take books off the bookshelf, but to only read from the books placed on tabletops.

Apparently, the librarian did not like to return books to their proper place, which could be a chore after a large group of visitors. This librarian seemed to have forgotten what a librarian is called to do, which is not to say that her job is to pick up after people, but to help them to read and learn to use the library. Reading a book requires taking it off the self, and sometimes librarians need to put them back on the shelf, or empower the readers to re-self them.

So perhaps the message here is that when you go to work, make sure you remind yourself what it is you are called to do, and then do it — and don’t forget to go to the bathroom!