Sacred Work

The happiest man is he who loves his enemies and enjoys his work. -Unknown

These are heady times in which it seems anyone who can think and labor simultaneously can stay financially solvent, and by all appearances, even the thinking part is negotiable. Like other modern marvels, it’s easy to forget how historically unprecedented it is that forty hours of labor per week can finance upwardly mobile lives.

This feat of modern economics, combined with a convenient forgetfulness of the struggle of previous agricultural societies, has generated some imperfect attitudes about work. Instead of a blessing and a gift, work becomes a dark slog between paydays and weekends. We hate it and long to be free from it. We need only a few signposts to indicate a thread of this national attitude: Thank God It’s Friday. Good enough for Monday. And there was this zinger: If you’re not making lots of money, at least have fun.

It’s difficult to discuss work without discussing money because of how our economy functions. We sell labor or products; we agree on a price and therefore owe no man anything. It’s fair, and I have no problem with it. But to the child of God, money ought to be periphery to work, or at least we ought to add another dimension to our thoughts about it.

What about all the work that someone must do that promises little to no monetary return, like changing diapers, washing dishes, counseling, preaching? What about the work that is neither remunerative nor fun, but pays off in satisfaction, fulfilment, or contentment? What about work as a calling or a craft?

If we make money the sole purpose of our work, at least two problems arise: One, It creates a need to make as much as possible by whatever means possible, as efficiently as possible, which can blind us to the downstream effects of our work. Two, our work becomes a section of our life split off from church and recreation, a separate entity that we begin to view with proprietary interest. It’s for me, and I donate most of it to keeping my family alive.

To absolve ourselves of the guilt and various pressures of this work, which is for me, we then clock out to volunteer at the soup kitchen or spend “family time.” Both extracurricular outreach and family time are honorable and necessary, of course, but to engage in them as a way to offset the lack of it in work points to how we view work as money time and family, ministry, or recreation time as off time.

If our work serves the family or the community, work will not need to be seen as time away from family or community, but time spent for them. This distinction may be separated merely by a frame of mind, but the difference reframes our relationship to it. In some families where money is tight, the economic necessity of long days and hard work can reflect itself in the family as acceptance, in a contentment and a resourcefulness that is honorable and satisfactory. It is possible for excess income to create its own dilemma, which we try to solve by making more money to give our children a good life via possessions or spending more on the family.

There’s another aspect of work we often fail to think about. Many of the products we consume, such as food and clothes, take up a smaller percentage of our time and money than they did in previous generations, which frees up more discretionary income. This is another marvel of global economy; although, I cannot pretend that it is a miracle. The true cost of these products must be made up somewhere, and often are inflicted on the disadvantaged or on the earth.

As I type this, I am wearing a shirt made in Japan. Perhaps it was woven in some sweatshop; I don’t know the history of this shirt. It cost me twelve dollars, and I felt good about it because I was a good “steward” of my money and was not buying a $75, organic-cotton-ethically-sourced shirt. But that it was so cheap depended on some laborer barely making any money at all. And for me to wax entitled to $12 or even $50 shirts is blindness, especially when I can afford them. In my American economy, I would refuse to work for the wages necessary to make such a cheap shirt.

But I am, at least, hypocritical. Our culture places us in an increasingly impossible position, and it is difficult (to put it mildly) to use products that free us of moral dilemmas. And refusing to buy shirts woven in sweatshops makes you more of a political activist than a reformer; although, I wouldn’t be too quick to toss it aside as an honorable gesture.

I simply ask that we think about this: Upwardly mobile America is directly dependent on an exploitable, industrial labor market, and when we wax entitled to cheap products, which implies cheap labor, we are resting on the fact there are people (preferably not us) out there who ought to work for very little so we can keep more of what we make.

We might at least be grateful to those people who empower our upwardly mobile lives and stop exploiting them personally. It was as if Donald Trump built a wall to keep back the Mexican immigrants, but then hired these same illegal immigrants as cheaply as possible to build Trump Tower. When we complain about the “cost of living,” we are denying the fact that regardless of the cost of living, a greater percentage of our income is discretionary income compared to a more of the population than almost ever before.

What does this have to do with our work? This: We work not only for ourselves, but also for the world.

Our work can be a service or a cost to the community. When we narrow our vision of work to a mere paycheck, we become exploiters who want their money and nothing more. It is a cost to the world, to someone. It is a cost to the community. We become sophisticated hucksters, selling whatever we can as fast as we can and getting out.

I’ve heard myself say things such as, “I don’t enjoy [roofing, concrete work, etc.], but if it paid well enough, I would do it.” There is the implication in such a statement that we come into our vocations ultimately for the salary, and not because we’ve been called to the work, or because the community needs such a workman, or because it’s a family business or part of our heritage.

We essentially sell ourselves for our work. Have we considered how it affects our family? Have we considered its ethics? Prostitution also pays, I’ve heard. What if one week of working as a prostitute would make you a millionaire?

Forgive me for the extreme metaphor, but the themes are there: Prostitution dehumanizes not only because it is adultery or fornication, but also because it assigns a monetary value to a priceless, sacred act, and thus cheapens it by implying that it can have a price. Work was a prelapsarian mandate but was then given postlapsarian status as an opportunity to work a kind of visible salvation onto the world, to create an Eden in an un-Edenic earth, to save us from ourselves and our destructive slothfulness and uselessness. I suggest work is also a sacred act and it includes, but ought to transcend, the transaction of money. And when we narrow it to only a means for money, we have made ourselves merely venal. Just as prostitution dehumanizes, any work done without a proper ethic and purpose can likewise wither the spirit.

Obviously, we should consider honor, ethics, and fairness in our labor. And we ought to be careful with the simultaneously disgusting and lucrative culture of consumerism that surrounds us. But perhaps it is not so important to have the occupation that is the freest from moral dilemmas, but to do what we find to do with a quiet honor, dignity, and quality, even if it is work no one else wants to do. Someone must pump septic tanks unless we want to do without septic systems. Therefore, as counterpoint to the above, I would like to set out three visions of good work.

1. In Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s novel, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, the protagonist Ivan, who has been exiled to Siberia under the reign of Stalin, awakes one morning in the prison camp and feels sick. But he marches out with the rest of the men to where they lay cinder block on a new guard house.

It is cold and hard work. But Ivan begins. Starting is hard on a day like that, but Ivan is a craftsman who takes satisfaction in his work. Once he makes a start, he settles into a rhythm, and the work becomes enjoyable. He admires the symmetry in a straight line of blocks. He enters into the work for his own sake, and in this way, he approaches freedom even in captivity and brutality. By quitting time, the guard orders him to dump the rest of his mortar over the wall, but Ivan refuses and wants to finish his run of blocks, and almost misses supper, which would result in other severe repercussions. A guard can force him to lay block, but nobody can stop him from enjoying his own excellent work.

2. One would think that in a life devoted to contemplation, work would fall secondary to the demands of the prayerful life. But Thomas Merton, a Trappist Monk, says otherwise. In his autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, he writes,

“You are not supposed to pause and pray when you are at work. American Trappist notions do not extend to that: on the contrary you are expected to make some act of pure intention and fling yourself into the business and work up a sweat and get a great deal finished by the time it is all over. To turn it into contemplation, you can occasionally mutter between your teeth, ‘All for Jesus! All for Jesus!’ But the idea is to keep working.”

Later, in New Seeds of Contemplation, Merton writes about finding the will of God in work.

“The requirements of a work to be done can be understood as the will of God. If I am supposed to hoe a garden or make a table, then I will be obeying God if I am true to the task I am performing. To do the work carefully and well, with love and respect for the nature of my task and with due attention to its purpose, is to unite myself to God’s will in my work. In this way I become His instrument. He works through me. When I act as His instrument, my labor cannot become an obstacle to contemplation, even though it may temporarily so occupy my mind that I cannot engage in it while I am actually doing my job. Yet my work itself will purify and pacify my mind and dispose me for contemplation.”

What if we viewed our work as a visible prayer, as a monument to the will of God? What if the craft of our labor was worth doing, even without pay? What if we worked out of principle and meaning? Would the satisfaction that comes from a great effort and quality work make us feel good about ourselves? I think it would. There is usually a satisfaction that accompanies service. Would we still need extensive and elaborate vacations to escape the ennui of our work? Would we feel the need for ever larger paychecks to offset the toll work inflicts on our bodies or mind?

3. Forgive me for the next trope. It is too pertinent not to use.

Three men are laying brick into a wall. A passerby comes along and asks them, “What are you doing?”

The first replies, “I’m laying brick.” The second replies, “I’m making money.” And the third replies, “I’m building a Cathedral.”

I suppose we have had all three attitudes at different times. I have had all of them in one day. But if we could reliably achieve the state of work done for purposes higher than money, we might have the privilege of living a life with the satisfaction and pleasure of good work. Instead of building houses, we could do the necessary work of sheltering humans. Instead of making supper, we are feeding the family. Your work affects your neighbors.

My culture, the Anabaptists, have been known for their work ethic, their quality craftsmanship and good cooking, so much so that it has become its own marketing tool. I do not find this dishonorable; although, when I see a sign advertising “Amish Eggs,” I think we have stretched the boundaries of its usefulness and propriety.

We should first of all be known for our vision of hope for humanity, for our living out of the Words of Jesus, but if our religion is expressed in honest labor with fair market price, it is a vital way of showing our loyalty to the God, earth, and community. We can hold out a vision of good work and human purpose alongside another decadent vision that has produced an entire demographic that wants to get their money and get out. By contrast, we highlight the beauty of purpose and the sacred action of good work, working a deliberate and visible salvation into the world.