2742: Work and Blessing from Lincoln County Watch
By Anna Von Reitz
My Son was born many years after my Father died, so
he often asks for information about the enigmatic past, and I struggle to
explain both the man and the vanished world he belonged
to.
Dad was a Big City kid. He grew up in
Chicago, Illinois, and he loved the finer things of life --- symphony music,
opera, French perfume for his wife. Yet, after the Second World War, he came to
live on a dairy farm in Wisconsin.
Two and a half hours later, 6:30 precisely, he was
down the road to his Day Job and an eight hour shift of various kinds of
construction and design work before he came home in the late afternoon and began
the entire round of milking and caring for cows
again.
In between, he managed to till and fertilize and
plant the farm fields, maintain and harvest the orchard, and care for the bee
colonies in the apiary. He was lucky to get an hour before bed to read or
listen to his beloved phonograph, and the next day it all began
again.
My Grandmother worked as hard in her own way as he
did. She was up at the same time, only her tasks were different. She
had the laundry and the bread-baking and the breakfast making to do. She raised
the truck garden, five acres of vegetables and berries to feed the family and
leave produce to sell or trade to the neighbors. Anyone who ever raised a
backyard garden knows what a challenging task five acres of truck garden is for
one woman.
Everyone worked and everyone worked hard.
Everyone helped the others. We all "pulled the sledge" in the winter,
bringing new loads of firewood up the long slope to the back door of the
farmhouse. Everyone watched the weather. Everyone kept an eye out for
chicken hawks.
The Work Ethic involved would stop most people
today stone dead in their tracks. We're mostly all fat and lazy from three
generations of electrical gadgets and gasoline engines, fast food, sugar, and
grease. It wasn't always like that.
People used to do enough physical work to be
physically fit without paying dues to a health
club.
My Father never bulked up muscle like Arnie
Schwarznegger; but, he was the kind of powerhouse that could pick up the back of
a car and just hold it suspended while another guy changed the tire. His
muscles were long and thin like spun steel cables and his reflexes were better
than a cat.
To this day, I can glance at a man and know
instantly if his muscles come from working or from a spa. I can tell the
same thing from a man's hands. And I always have more respect for those who have
worked and who do know what work is, because work -- actual work -- grounds us
to reality.
Work makes us aware of our limits, as Clint
Eastwood's character, Dirty Harry, used to say. Work brings forward our
capabilities. It teaches us who we are and what we can best contribute,
what we love, what we hate, and what matters. Work is not only noble in itself,
it makes us noble when we accept its challenges and embrace its
rewards.
My Father, a typical German, used to say that it
doesn't matter what work you do, only how well you do it and the spirit with
which you do it.
I can still see him mucking out the cow barn in the
early morning. To him, that manure was "gold for the garden" and it didn't
bother him at all to shovel it. He didn't find any kind of work to be
demeaning. His spirit could stand above it as effortlessly as a lark
ascending, but I think he was happiest in the moments he got to spend in his
workshop, building things.
In his hands, a wood plane became an instrument of
precision and grace. In his hands, a grinding wheel achieved the edges
that grindstones dream of. There is a "zen" that happens between a true
workman and his tools, an effortless and joyous knowing and of being in the
moment of creation, when time seems to stop, and there is only the flow of the
vision taking shape. Those were, I think, the moments he enjoyed most of
all.
So today, the workmen I hire to build and repair
things here at my home are astonished to find that I know about tools and have
tools --- and can use them myself. I know the processes of labor and the order
of things. I know when men are truly skilled at their work, and when they are
bluffing. I know when they have drinking problems and when they are
slacking. I can calculate a roof pitch. And for some reason, they
are always amazed that I would put on a pair of old sneakers and ratty
sweatpants and slather paint on walls.
Work, physical work, makes us better people.
It teaches us to properly value the work and skills of others. It humbles
us. It attaches us firmly to planet earth, the facts of life, and meaning
of our lives. It gives us satisfaction that can come to us in no other
way. It provides us the means to thrive and to challenge ourselves, to
create, to care-take, and to join in that slipstream of creativity that gives
life to us all.
So whatever your work is, take pride in it
today. Remember that it is important and that you hold the keys to making
it fulfilling. It's your life and your work is a vital part of your
life. Join me in remembering my Father, a man who never turned his back on
any task that needed to be done, no matter how
humble.
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