In Praise of Work

On this Labor Day, I count it a privilege to work.  In the midst of the Great Recession, I hunted for employment for over a year, watching in vain as the family nest egg disappeared.  That year of job-hunting turned out to be the most difficult job of my life. 

Whenever I meet someone asking for work, I feel a strong connection.  Like I recognize myself in his or her face.  And it happens often; I now direct an emergency food program in Portland’s Cully neighborhood.

Recently a lanky, haggard-looking young man came in, stiffly asking how to do this (get a food box).  Never done this before, he said.  He appeared on the verge of tears, distracted by three children he struggled to corral even as he sought to find them food.  He’d been out of work for nearly four years and all he knew was construction.  Good luck on that, I thought but did not say as I placed the info for him, his wife and his children into our database, the ticket for three emergency food boxes every six months, enough to cover 10-15 days out of 180.

I understand.  I don’t have to try to imagine.  I sense the desperation tug at the muscles in his neck and squeeze at his heart and know the feeling.  At least his heart is young and his neck strong.

The job I found a year ago, part-time then, has become full-time, with benefits (sort off).  Even better, a great team to work with and a great cause to work for – providing emergency food for one out of every 53 Portlanders.

Our identity is not found in our jobs, I know.  However, work is part of the fabric of life, producing a sense of satisfaction that comes from being productive, doing good, and providing for family and others in need. 

When my kids were small, I taught them a quote from John Wesley, the eighteenth-century preacher:

“Earn all you can,

Save all you can,

Give all you can.”

Well, I’ve done better with the second two than the first line.  In our world, productivity, hard work, ability, and need do not necessarily coincide with income.  But until recently, work, albeit often lower pay, has come looking for me, not me for it.

Not everyone has been so blessed.  I’ve met people who struggled to find work long before the Great Recession and I’ve met plenty who are still hunting now.  It makes me grateful I have a job and all the more determined to live out that third line from Wesley.

When I enable someone to leave with a grocery cart full of food, I feel good, knowing I am blessing them in their time of need.  But I also pray for greater resources, tools to help them move beyond the emergency food box level.  The people who come to us don’t want a handout, they want a way out.  I wish I had the funds to hire a person trained to help those whose situations are more complicated, who can’t see their own way out, who struggle to overcome adversities that would swamp me too.

I understand what it is like to want to get to a goal and not see my way to it.  I also understand what it is like to give up on having a goal because to do so feels like bashing your head against a brick wall.  Been there, done that, and don’t want to go back.  Truth be told, I’ve never pulled myself up by my own bootstraps.  Whenever I’ve succeeded, there’ve always been others to give me a hand up, provide rungs for my ladder to success, hand me a flashlight in a pitch-dark tunnel . . . pick your metaphor.    

Meanwhile, for many, the situation is fairly straightforward: there are just not enough jobs to go around.   We’re starting a discussion among faith communities in Cully neighborhood this fall to talk about what we can do together beyond providing for emergency needs, maybe even turn vacant land and buildings into food and jobs.  Cully, a community with great ethnic diversity, has way higher than average unemployment.  It lacks many basic city services and ladders up which people can climb.

On this Labor Day, I find myself grateful I am able to work and have a job.  And as I renew my lifelong commitment to bless others with what God has given me, I set a new goal of making the Labor Days of the future days of celebration for others for whom today is no picnic.