I have come to call Labor Day one of the Minor Holidays: enough activity goes on that there are competing demands, but the expectations are not quite as monumental as Thanksgiving or Easter. Earlier in life, Minor Holidays were cause for unexpected celebration: a bonus day off of work! In my 20's that usually meant I could spend an extra day up at the cabin on the lake. If at home it could mean a day with friends, or an entire day home in my apartment watching movies – or just about whatever I wanted.
There was, however, one Labor Day that was a complete stand alone. No cabins, no movie marathons, no barbecues. It happened that I was on retreat over Labor Day weekend when I was 23.
The retreat took place on one of the weekends when I was living as a guest of a religious community. I have since come to call that my “quiet year.” It was a year filled with reflection and some needed grounding that I don't think could hurt many a 23-year old.
Because I was a guest of the community, and not a full-fledged member – I could generally come and go as needed between work and the community, and I wasn't expected to stay “in community” over holidays. On this Labor Day, I expected that I would be away for the weekend. But when the weekend finally arrived, somehow nothing materialized in the form of friend or family gatherings or movie marathons. So there I was: on retreat.
In community, we gathered for prayer and reflection throughout the day (five times a day to be exact). This happened every day of the week, and was the structure around which all other community activity was built. On this particular day, at each of those times, there was some reference to work and the gift of work.
The gift of work? Ugh.
Don't get me wrong – that's really why I went for the year, to reflect! On everything! Even work! But at the time of this Labor Day – I had just been living there for two months. Despite how much I was beginning to truly enjoy the slower, fuller pace of community life, I was ready for some away time. To spend a whole day off thinking about work was the last thing I wanted to do. I wanted to jump in a lake or pool and lay in the sun, for heaven's sake. I preferred to think about anything but work.
I often said, (and still do say, despite my soon to be revealed learning on this day) “My job I love...it's the whole concept of work that bothers me” Work can definitely be a “have to.” A means to an end. The mandatory activity to ensure independence. And, at that time getting a job was also what you did after college as quickly as possible. To stray from this would not be “normal” or “successful” (unless you were going to grad school). I knew I was lucky to find work during a period of recession, and I was fortunate it was work I mostly enjoyed, but my appreciation ended there.
The retreat, as I consider the paragraph above, was a good good kick in the derriere. It is clear to anyone who wants or needs work how much it matters – painfully obvious if you are one of the many hundreds of Americans unemployed at the moment, and you or your family's survival depends on work and subsequent income that is running out or doesn't exist. We talked about that reality at this Labor Day retreat.
We also talked about how work often brings structure to living. Most of the community members I lived with did not work outside of the community but had certain jobs inside of the community. These jobs were the tasks that kept the community functioning, the grease that kept the wheels of reflection and prayer turning (and there are always wheels turning, even in a religious community focused on prayer and reflection). It reminds me of many of my current day friends who are parents staying at home with their kids. Work can be identifying the activities that must be done in a day, then finishing them, and often repeating the same pattern the next day. We talked about the fact that this type of work – consistent work done well – can be unnoticed because it is often the silent engine that keeps things going.
We talked about those not allowed to work for pay, because with work and salary come economic freedom and not everybody around the world is free. We talked about how there are vast populations of people blocked from working – a form of oppression.
I had never thought of it in this way: that work was the key to freedom. I was always seeking freedom from work. I wanted to be saved by getting away from work, when really work was often the thing that saved me.
I'm not saying that work is salvation. I am not in favor of being enslaved by work, obsessed and consumed by it at all hours. But this day helped me believe work should not be a four-letter word. It's not always a dream, but it is usually a means to an end, and that in and of itself is worth a lot in the world we live in. Having been through periods of time without work, the simple realization of the structure of it all was important to me. I am grateful to work – for me, that means work “out of community” or working outside of the home. I am also extraordinarily glad (and lucky) to be able to choose the kind of work I want to do. And now, as a 40-something married person with a partner and two kids, I am one of hundreds so grateful that work allows me to provide healthcare for me and my family.
The “quiet year” also taught me something about work, beyond the Labor Day experience itself. In the context of my whole life, I often look back on that year as a “morning meditation.” Spiritual leaders in many different traditions suggest a brief quiet meditation every morning to set the course for a day. That year in many ways set the course for my adult life. It was then that I would try to live so that my life would not be a life sculpted only from the world of my job; it would be (and is) a life that values work, my job, and my income as part of life, not all of life. I am not always perfect at this, but my life then and now is lead by a deeper spiritual current beneath all of my daily tasks – at home, work, and in my community. I have to continually remind myself that daily work – in or out of the home – is a part of the day, it does not make or break the day.
Now more than ever it seems my contemporaries and I have varied ways we compose what work is. What a gift it was at the age of 23, the morning of my life, to get the opportunity to spend a whole day thinking, talking and reflecting on what work is and why it matters. I hope you find an opening on your Labor Day to do just that.
And if it's your thing – I wish you a swim, a barbecue and a movie marathon as well. But only after, of course, your morning meditation on the value of work.
