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26 August 2015  •  No. 35

Special issue on
LABOR DAY
A collection of quotes

 

¶ Creator God, we give thanks this day for work: for work that sustains; for work that fulfills. . . . As part of our thanks we also intercede for those who have no work, who have too much or too little work; who work at jobs that demean or destroy, work which profits the few at the expense of the many. (Continue reading Ken Sehested’s “Labor Day” litany for worship.)

Art by Ade Bethune, ©Ade Bethune Collection, St. Catherine University, St. Paul, Minnesota. This and many other pieces of Bethune's art appeared in The Catholic Worker newsletter.

¶ In Christian mysticism, the Latin phrase Ora et Labora reads in full: "Ora et labora, Deus adest son has" (“Pray and work, God is there,” i.e., God helps without delay.) The pray and work refers to the monastic practice of working and praying, generally associated with its use in the Rule of St. Benedict.

¶ “I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night, / alive as you and me. / Says I "But Joe, you're ten years dead" / "I never died" said he." —Lyrics to “Joe Hill,” sung by Joan Baez. And here’s Paul Robeson’s rendition of the song.
       Joe Hill, a Swedish immigrant, was a songwriter, cartoonist and mining labor organizer in the US. He was convicted, on circumstantial evidence, of killing a Salt Lake City grocery store owner and was executed by firing squad in 1915.
       Hill is credited with coining the phrase “pie in the sky,” used in his most famous song, “The Preacher and the Slave,” which was a parody of the hymn “In the Sweet By-and-By.” Here’s a Utah Phillips rendition of “The Preacher and the Slave.”

¶ A vision without a task is but a dream, a task without a vision is drudgery, a vision with a task is the hope of the world. —Church inscription, Sussex, England (1730)

¶ Agitation for the eight hour day began after the Civil War. Congress passed an eight hour law on 25 June 1868, but it was largely ignored. In the 1880s the issue was revived. The eight-hour work day was not effectively established until 1938 with the passage of the “Wage and Hour Law.”

¶ As with so many of our holidays, we have mostly forgotten the severe conflict which provides the historical context [of Labor Day]. In the latter decades of the 19th century industrialization was hitting its stride in the developing world. The technology of commerce was producing massive amounts of profit and a widening gaps between rich and poor. (Continue reading Ken Sehested’s sermon, “Labor in the Shadow of Sabbath,” a sermon for Labor Day.)

¶ “No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There is too much work to do.” —Dorothy Day

¶ “A spirituality of work is based on a heightened sense of sacramentality, of the idea that everything that is, is holy and that our hands consecrate it to the service of God. When we grow radishes in a small container in a city apartment, we participate in creation. When we sweep the street in front of a house in the dirtiest city in the country, we bring new order to the universe. When we repair what has been broken or give away what we have earned that is above and beyond our own sustenance, we stoop down and scoop up the earth and breathe into it new life again, as God did one morning in time only to watch it unfold and unfold and unfold through the ages.” —Joan Chittister, OSB

¶ “In our endless quest to eliminate work, to find effortless fulfillment and the grail of One E-Z Step, we deny the ultimate value of the grind.” —Owen Edwards

¶ “There are buoyant powers of healing at work in the world that do not depend on us, that we need not finance or keep functioning and that are not at our disposal.” —Walter Brueggemann

¶ “If all the cars in the United States were placed end to end, it would probably be Labor Day Weekend.” —Doug Larson

¶ “Don't mistake activity with achievement.” ― John Wooden

 ¶ “Now as I look around, it's mighty plain to see, / This world is such a great and a funny place to be. / Oh, the gamblin' man is rich, an' the workin' man is poor, / And I ain't got no home in this world anymore.” —Woodie Guthrie, “I Ain’t Got No Home In This World Anymore”

¶ So that. . . . “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his hands, so that he may be able to give to those in need." —Ephesians 4:28

¶ “I want to be with people who submerge / in the task, who go into the fields to harvest / and work in a row and pass the bags along, / who stand in the line and haul in their places, / who are not parlor generals and field deserters / but move in a common rhythm / when the food must come in or the fire be put out.” —Marge Piercy

¶ “She'd been in labor for nineteen hours; I completely understood why she wanted to pass the buck. ‘You are so beautiful,’ her husband crooned, holding up her shoulders.
       “‘You are so full of shit,’ Lila snarled, but as a contraction settled over her like a net, she bore down and pushed.”  ―Jodi Picoult, “Handle with Care”

Art by Ricardo Levins Morales, ©RLM Art Studio rlmartstudio.com

¶ “The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.” —Thomas Jefferson

¶ “I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. Life is no ‘brief candle’ to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.” —George Bernard Shaw

¶ “The few own the many because they possess the means of livelihood of all. . . . The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters of labor. “ —Helen Keller

Child coal miners, Hughestown, Pennsylvania, 1911.

¶ “We will have many visions of what a just and equitable democracy will look like, and we will have even more ideas on how to get there. But we must begin to work together, to compromise, and to listen to each other in order to realize our visions. Working together will be the hardest challenge we will face.” —Linda Stout, “Bridging the Class Divide and other Lessons for Grassroots Organizing”

¶ When cutting capstone, carefully / measured, from a larger block with / nothing but hammer and chisel, you / come to know the necessity of blister-raising / toil to achieve envisioned result. (Continue reading Ken Sehested’s poem, “Blistering Hope: A stonemason’s meditation on perseverance.”)

Homemade cartoon following the completion of my first solo job as a stonemason.

¶ “Like craftsmen working on a great cathedral, we have each been given instructions about the particular stone we are to spend our lives carving, without knowing or being able to guess where it will take its place within the grand design.” ­—N.T. Wright

 ¶ “The economics of industrialized countries would collapse if women didn't do the work they do for free: According to economist Marilyn Waring, throughout the West it generates between 25 and 40 percent of the gross national product.” ―Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth

¶  “Worrying is less work than doing something to fix the worry. Everybody wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help Mom with the dishes.” —P.J. O'Rourke

¶ “There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium, and be lost.
       “It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep the channel open.” —Martha Graham, legendary modern dancer and choreographer

¶ “The secret of wealth is that workers are systematically underpaid.” ― Julie Rivkin, Literary Theory: An Anthology

¶ “Go in all simplicity; do not be anxious to win a quiet mind, and it will be all the quieter. Do not examine so closely into the progress of your soul. Do not crave too much to be perfect, but let your spiritual life be formed by your duties, and by the actions which are called forth by circumstances.” —St. Francis de Sales

¶ “A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.” —Albert Einstein

¶  “Their land is filled with silver and gold: / and there is no end to their treasures. / Their land is filled with horses: / And there is no end to their chariots. / Their land is filled with idols, / they bow down to the work of their hands: / to what their own fingers have made. / So people are humbled, / and everyone is brought low.” —Isaiah 2:7-9

¶  In 1968 the US minimum wage was $1.60. If it had kept up with income growth and distribution overall, it would now be $21.16 per hour. —Salvatore Babones, “The Minimum Wage Is Stuck at $7.25; It Should Be $21.16 — or Higher”

¶ “We mean to make things over, / We are tired of toil for naught  / With but bare enough to live upon / And ne'er an hour for thought. / We want to feel the sunshine / And we want to smell the flow'rs / We are sure that God has willed it / And we mean to have eight hours; / We're summoning our forces / From the shipyard, shop and mill / Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest / Eight hours for what we will.” —“Eight Hours,” Lyrics by I. G. Blanchard, music by the Reverend Jesse H. Jones, 1878

¶ “We’ll work ‘til Jesus Comes,” Doc Watson.

¶ “Can one be passionate about the just, the / ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit / to no labor in its cause? I don't think so.” —Mary Oliver

¶ “Can anything be imagined more abhorrent to every sentiment of generosity and justice, than the law which arms the rich with the legal right to fix, by assize, the wages of the poor? If this is not slavery, we have forgotten its definition. Strike the right of associating for the sale of labor from the privileges of a freeman, and you may as well bind him to a master, or ascribe him to the soil.” ―William Cullen Bryant

¶ “The test of sincerity of one’s prayer is the willingness to labor on its behalf.” —St. John Chrysostom

¶ “The intractability of global inequality is more pervasive than rule by the 1% in rich countries. It is sustained by partnerships with the elite of developing nations as well. Last week the World Bank calculated that ten Africans own more wealth than half the continent.” —"Another World Is Possible, Without the 1%," Winnie Byanyima,  executive director, Oxfam International

¶ “Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds. . . .” —Hebrews 10:24

¶ “To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help every one in everything is to succumb to violence.” —Thomas Merton

¶ “Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. . . . These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people.” ―Abraham Lincoln

¶ “Stand up boys, let the bosses know / Turn your buckets over, turn your lanterns low / There's fire in our hearts and fire in our soul / but there ain't gonna be no fire in the hole.” —“Fire in the Hole,” Hazel Dickens

¶ “Those who participate in [sabbath] break the anxiety cycle. They are invited to awareness that life does not consist in frantic production and consumption that reduces everyone else to threat and competition.” —Walter Brueggemann, Sabbath as Resistance

New Orleans under water. Photo by Larry Towell.

¶ Special thanks to those who, for ten years now, have worked to rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina’s devastation. To mark the occasion, listen to Billie Holiday singing Louis Armstrong’s “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?” and Satchmo with his “Hot Five” ban playing “West End Blues”

¶ Never forget: We often sow for an unseen harvest; provide hospitality for angels unaware; set tables of bounty for unnumbered migrants to the land of Heaven’s delight. —Ken Sehested

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Featured this week on prayer&politiks:

• “Labor Day,” a litany for worship

• “Labor in the Shadow of Sabbath,” a Labor Day sermon

• “Meditations on labor and leisure: Several reflections on sabbath keeping”

• “Blistering Hope: A stonemason’s meditation on perseverance”

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Language not otherwise indicated above is that of the editor. Don’t let the “copyright” notice keep you from circulating material you find here (and elsewhere in this site). Reprint permission is hereby granted in advance for noncommercial purposes.

Your comments are always welcomed. If you have news, views, notes or quotes to add to the list above, please do. If you like what you read, pass this along to your friends.

 

20 August 2015  •  No. 34

¶ Early New Year’s resolution? One year from now, August 2016, marks the centennial of the National Park Service. If you haven’t already (or even if you have), begin planning to spend some time in one of the parks. One resource to get started is the PBS series, “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea,”  by producer Ken Burns. Go here for more views of spectacular national park photos. (Photo above: Storm in Arches National Park in Utah, Anthony Quintano/Flickr)

¶ Coincidentally, attention to national park history offers the chance to be aware of moral ambiguity in human affairs. Former US President Theodore Roosevelt was arguably our greatest environmental president, not to mention his courageous resistance to corporate wealth’s influence in public affairs. But he was, arguably, our most imperial and racialized president when it came to our nation’s role in global affairs. (Re. the latter, see “The Imperial Cruise: A secret history of empire and war” by James Bradley.) Awareness of this ambiguity is essential for any attempting to mount a morally-high horse.

¶ Invocation.  Listen to Wendell Berry read his short poem, “The Peace of Wild Things.”

¶ Call to worship. Wish we could occasionally start church like this or this. When I read the 2 Samuel 6:14 account of David “dancing before the Lord,” clogging comes to mind.
        Clog dancing (aka “buck” or “flat foot” dancing) is native to my part of the world here in the southern Appalachian mountains, growing from the cultural interactions of Scots-Irish, African Americans (the banjo is an African instrument) and Native Americans. Near to where I live, the Mars Hill College Bailey Mountain Clogs have been national clog champions a couple dozen times. In its origins the dancing was not choreographed or uniformed—individuals or groups improvised a wide array of steps and styles.

¶ Audaciously hopeful news you likely won’t hear about. The Republic of the Marshall Islands, a nation of 70,000 citizens in the north Pacific (about half-way between Hawaii and Australia), has filed a lawsuit with the International Court of Justice in the Hague and US federal court against nuclear weapon holding countries demanding they comply with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty’s requirement of nuclear disarmament. From 1946-1958, the US exploded 67 nuclear weapons in the region. In 1956, the United States Atomic Energy Commission regarded the Marshall Islands as "by far the most contaminated place in the world.”

¶ Overlooked in the political dust storm kicked up by the nuclear arms deal with Iran is the larger context of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1970, signed by the US and 190 other nations. The treaty’s preamble calls for “the cessation of the manufacture of nuclear weapons, the liquidation of all their existing stockpiles, and the elimination from national arsenals of nuclear weapons and the means of their delivery . . .”

¶ The Obama administration's 2016 budget calls for a $348 billion investment over the next 10 years to initiate a rebuilding of the entire US nuclear arsenal. The National Defense Panel, appointed by Congress, found that the price tag over 30 years could be as much as a $1 trillion.

¶ “Here’s a wild thought. What if [the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty’s Article VI] were recited aloud every Sunday in churches and other public spaces across the nation, the way congregants at my parents’ church recited the Apostle’s Creed when I was a boy? Each word, slowly uttered, welled up from the soul. The words were sacred. Isn’t a world free of nuclear weapons—and beyond that, free of war itself—worth believing in?” —Robert C. Koehler, “A Wedge for Nuclear Disarmament”

¶ Call to confession. “Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims; the second it crushes, the first it intoxicates.” —Simone Weil

¶ Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto created this mesmerizing visual timeline (14+ minute video), showing each of the 2,053 nuclear explosions which have taken place between 1945 and 1998. Beautiful and chilling at the same time.

¶ Hymn of praise. “I give thanks to the waves upholding me, hail the great winds urging me on, / Greet the infinite sea before me, sing the sky my sailor’s song. / I was born upon the fathoms; never harbor or port have I known. / The wide universe is the ocean I travel, and the earth is my blue boat home. —Peter Meyer, “Blue Boat Home,” sung to the tune Hyfrydol

¶ More hopeful news. “For one day last week, 78% of Germany's power was generated by renewables like solar and wind. The country is spending €200 billion [US$223 billion] to move away from fossil fuels permanently. . . . Economists predict the renewable industry will create upwards of 80,000 jobs. . . . In 2011, Germany made headlines when the small agricultural village of Wildpoldsried in the state of Bavaria produced 321% more energy than it needed." —Araz Hachadourian, Yes Magazine

¶ Related news, closer to home. “With the amount of wind-generated power in the US reaching record highs and its cost dropping to new lows, two Department of Energy reports released Monday suggest that the renewable energy revolution might be upon us. According to the “2014 Wind Technologies Market Report,” wind saw the most growth of any power source in the U.S. last year with total installed wind power capacity reaching a total of 65.9 gigawatts in 2014—enough capacity to power over 17.5 million homes.” —Lauren McCauley, “With Wind Prices at a Record Low, Is the Clean Energy Revolution Upon Us?

¶ Muslim leaders and scholars from 20 countries made a joint declaration Aug. 18 at a conference in Istanbul, calling on Muslims and all nations worldwide to address climate change. “Our species, though selected to be a caretaker or steward (khalifah) on the earth, has been the cause of such corruption and devastation on it,” the statement says. —SojoNet

¶ Words of assurance. “You have drunk a bitter wine with none to be your comfort. / You who once were left behind will be welcome at love’s table. / You have come by way of sorrow; you have made the long way home; / But the love that waits for you, you will someday come to know.” —Julie Miller, “By Way of Sorrow,”  sung by the Wailin’ Jennys

¶ An aftereffect of the 17 July massacre at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, was recovery of a forgotten history: use of the Confederate battle flag in Southern culture was in fact a political response to the modern civil rights movement. Here in North Carolina residents are just now learning that construction of the majority of Confederate monuments in the state—82 out of 98—occurred after 1898, decades after the Civil War when white supremacy campaigns seized power by force and took the vote from black North Carolinians. For stories of a different sort, read Timothy Tyson’s “Commemorating North Carolina’s Anti-Confederate heritage, too.”

¶ Claims that the South is the source of racial (among other) ills is “crude regional stereotypes [that] ignore the deep roots such social ills have in our shared national history and culture.” —Thomas J. Sugrue, “It’s Not Dixie’s Fault”

¶ Oscar-nominated filmmaker Matthew Cooke has produced “Race Baiting 101”  (11 minute video). Essential viewing, summarizing several hundred years of history and presented in a visually engaging way.

¶ “Almost everything [since Barack Obama’s election] has made it clear that in America, the patterns that began in the 17th century are still all-too-much with us, and will be with us, until we figure out what it means . . . [as] Martin King [was] constantly saying to us, ‘America, you must be born again!’" —Vincent Harding, “We Are Creating a New River,” interviewed by Lucas Johnson

¶ Preach it. “A nation that will keep people in slavery for 244 years will "thingify" them—make them things. Therefore they will exploit them, and poor people generally, economically. And a nation that will exploit economically will have foreign investments and everything else, and will have to use its military to protect them. All of these problems are tied together.  What I am saying today is that we must go from this convention and say, 'America, you must be born again!'” —Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

¶ Centennial of the lynching of Leo Frank . . . and the struggle over the meaning of freedom. In August 1913 the body of 14-year-old laborer Mary Phagan was found in the basement of the National Pencil Company in Atlanta. The company’s Jewish-American superintendent, Leo Frank, was eventually convicted of the crime and sentenced to death by hanging. Two years later a last-minute commutation of the sentence to life imprisonment sent Frank to a prison farm. On the night of 16 August 1915 a group of men from Marietta, Georgia (Phagan’s hometown), abducted Frank and drove him to Marietta for a public lynching. (Continue reading Ken Sehested’s “Centennial of the lynching of Leo Frank.” )

¶ In case you missed it: Richard Blanco, son of Cuban immigrants to the US, was asked to write and deliver a poem on the occasion of the US Embassy’s reopening in Havana, Cuba, Friday 14 2015. Listen to his performance of “We All Belong to the Sea Between Us.”

¶ A CBS News poll the week after Obama’s 17 December 2014 announcement about reestablishing relations with Cuba revealed that 77% of US citizens that the ban on travel to Cuba should be lifted. That result was confirmed days later by a Washington Post-ABC News poll showing 74% support, including 64% of Republicans.

Photo at right by Stan Dotson, of a bridge over the Rio San Juan which empties into the Bay of Matanzas on Cuba’s north shore almost due south of Key West, Florida.

¶ Example of how headline writers subtly shape information. Compare these two coverage headlines of the 14 August ceremony officially opening the US embassy in Havana, Cuba: CNN: “US Flag Raised Above Embassy in Cuba.” MSNBC: “US Flag Flies Over Cuba.”

¶ Lectionary for Sunday next: What is pure religion? (Hint: see James 1:27.)

¶ Just for fun. Hot Scots drum line. Five guys, in kilts, entertaining antics and stunning rhythm (3+minutes).

¶ Call to the table. “God is the tallest woman on earth with curly red hair all the way down to her toes, and she has really yummy, yummy hands." —Kenzie B., age 4

¶ “I think the United States has the potential of being a true superpower on earth. . . . But the measure of it is if we are a champion of peace. And a champion of human rights. And a champion of democracy and freedom. And a champion of environmental quality. And a champion of being generous to people in need. Those are the marks, in my opinion, of a superpower for which we should be striving.” —former US President Jimmy Carter, interview in The Atlantic magazine, 13 July 2015

¶ Altar call. “Life’s journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well-preserved body but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting “Holy sh*t . . . what a ride!” —Hunter S. Thompson

¶ Closing hymn. “Genuine Negro Jig,” Carolina Chocolate Drops.

Art by Ricardo Levins Morales, ©RLM Art Studio

¶ Benediction. “The hardest spiritual work in the world is to love the neighbor as the self—to encounter another human being not as someone you can use, change, fix, help, save, enroll, convince or control, but simply as someone who can spring you from the prison of yourself, if you will allow it.” —Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World

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Featured this week on prayer&politiks:

• “Centennial of the lynching of Leo Frank . . . and the struggle over the meaning of freedom”

• “Give wisdom to legislators,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 72

• “By the Word of Truth,” a litany for worship inspired by James 1:17-27

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Language not otherwise indicated above is that of the editor. Don’t let the “copyright” notice keep you from circulating material you find here (and elsewhere in this site). Reprint permission is hereby granted in advance for noncommercial purposes.

Your comments are always welcomed. If you have news, views, notes or quotes to add to the list above, please do. If you like what you read, pass this along to your friends.