You work to live! You do not live to work...

Hello all,

I am in the presence of gentlemen right now. I am having tea and wine with Matthew, David, Mike, and Joe. I must say that they are men after my own heart. They are students at the University I work at, and they are with me now at Cay's house. They are all heading off to Budapest tomorrow for a weekend of travelling.

Let me say that work today was very interesting. Sometimes in my work I find myself doing things that I never thought I would be doing. Let me expound. Immediately after lunch I got a call from Maros, our maintenance man on campus, to do some manual labor. I love manual labor. I love to work with my hands and sweat. The job Maros had us doing was stacking wood, which was great. After stacking wood for about an hour, he asked me if I could clean up the garbage bins behind the Kartause. This means that I had to clean them by myself. And the reason I had to clean them in the first place was because we didn't hire anyone yet to do them. I gotta start moving faster with the hiring.

An hour later I finish cleaning up the trash in the garbage bin. Like I said I love manual labor, except picking up trash. I prayed a lot for patience while I was doing it, and offered up my labor for sake of all those who don't have jobs.

This brings me to the heart of my subject today: work. Work can consume you. I know that it has been consuming me these past weeks, and thank God for Cay for keeping me in check. Work should never take precedence over such things like relationships, marriage, family, and even your own personal health. Work is a blessing and gift from God, but it can become an idol. It is meant primarily to provide means for living, and then to benefit society and ourselves. It helps in making this world a better place (I know that sounds cliche), but we cannot define who we are by our jobs. We are not our jobs. My identity is not Vince Granado the University administrator. My identity is ultimately found in being Vince Granado the marvelous creation of God. I am his beloved, and anything after that takes a very very very distant second. What I am trying to say is that we work in order to live; we do not live in order to work. Work should not rule our lives, and when we begin to dream about work (i love you honey), I think we are venturing into dangerous areas.

Now I don't want you to think I don't take my work seriously, I do and I believe that as responsible Christians and citizens, we are obligated to do our work to our best ability. In a way I believe that what we do is a reflection of who we are. Our jobs serve as an extension of our person. Work allows us to utilize the gifts and talents that are given to us in order to glorify the Lord and build up the kingdom. I am all for that.

But anyways (with work aside)... right now I am in the presence of gentlemen and the love of my life. After my busy day at work, the boys and I hopped on a train and came to Vienna. We had a nice dinner at Vapiano's. Good Italian restaurant, with great service. We came back to Cay's house and had a nice glass of wine, before hitting the sack. They are taking off tomorrow morning, and then its a nice relaxing evening in Vienna before we leave for Italy on Saturday for more relaxing. Much needed relaxation I must add. Alright folks it's time for rest. God bless and goodnight.

Here is a picture of Cay, Tito Rene and Tita Nel, myself, and the gentlemen