I have declared today, The Day of the Bunny Pants. I love my bunny pants. There is something about them…I sort feel like whatever life throws at me, at the end of the day, there’s nothing that can’t be cured with my bunny pants and Netflix.

It’s been a stressful month. A stressful last couple of months, if I’m honest. From the personal aftermath of Hurricane Harvey (yes, we survived, but that was about it)….to an elongated and messy break up, and finding a new job, just to name a few…life has dealt me a pretty random hand this fall.

And I think my choleric nature has gone into overdrive. It screams daily that I need to spend every free minute cleaning up this mess. Every moment must be spent being productive, pushing my life forward. And, at this point, I think I’ve forgotten that I am not a worker bee. I am a free, independent person that deserves to have fun, happiness, and simply bask in the raw joy of living.

I read one time about how the colonial Puritans are responsible for the work ethic behind the American dream. They believed strongly in the Scripture, “If a man doesn’t work, he shall not eat.” That’s good thinking, but like any Scripture or teaching, it can be taken too far. The Puritans were certainly guilty of this. Since they were largely responsible for the foundation of American ideology, that sort of “work until you drop dead,” became a building block of our cultural thinking. And we have taken it to heart for the last two hundred years.

Culturally, we disdain those that inherited privilege, and admire those that worked from rags to riches. We love phrases like, “working their way up,” or “paying dues at the bottom.” And this all comes from our fundamental Puritanical paradigm.

But, is that paradigm right? Is that paradigm Godly? I head a story one time, I don’t know how true it is. But, apparently there are historical records regarding Jesus’ stepfather Joseph. He was commenting on his work ethic there in the carpenter shop. He called Jesus lazy, saying that he spent all his time talking to people. Jesus would purportedly give products away, making it hard for the shop to make money. I don’t know how true that story is, but it makes for interesting thought.

Is our Puritanical work ethic Godly? Certainly God intends us to work. He explicitly frowns upon laziness, and there is Scripture after Scripture about the Godliness of labor and toil. So, certainly we are to work. But, beyond laziness, I don’t think God intended for us to spend our lives working to pay for our lives. Perhaps that is a product of The Curse. Perhaps in God’s natural order, we are to simply enjoy life. So, I think, that as a redeemed person in a fallen world, we should strive to have both. Both joy and work coexisting in balance.

So, this is why, today, I am declaring it The Day of the Bunny Pants. Nothing productive will go on here today.