Join us Thursday, July 30 at 7:00 pm on Zoom to discuss a summer read “Work in Progress” by Fr James Martin SJ
“Work in Progress” is a snapshot of several years—first as a boy, then as a teenager, and finally as a young adult--of being thrown into a series of jobs for which Martin had zero training. He almost always felt uncomfortable, unsettled, and uneasy. But, like many of us, he needed the money.
This coming-of-age story is set in the 1960s and 1970s, a lighthearted tale for readers who enjoy personal narratives, and it’s unlike anything Father Martin has written before. As he puts it, "This is a spiritual memoir from a different angle … told 'slant' as Emily Dickinson might say."
Martin is not the hero of these stories, more a hapless teenager who learns in each job, even the ones he loathes, something about the value of work, about what it means to be an adult, about people, and about life overall. Martin shares, "My summer jobs, crazy and funny and varied as they were, had something to do with who I am. As we Jesuits would say, the lessons I learned helped to 'form" me."