Our theme for the month of March is “Part Two.” Writers were challenged to choose a piece they’ve previously contributed to the post calvin and revisit it, perhaps writing a sequel or reflecting on how things have changed.
Julia’s original post is “The ‘B’ Word.”
Work!
Thank God for the might of it,
The ardour, the urge, the delight of it—
Work that springs from the heart’s desire
Setting the brain and the soul on fire—
Oh, what is so good as the heart of it
And what is so glad as the beat of it,
And what is so kind as the stern command,
Challenging brain and heart and hand?
– Angela Morgan, first stanza of “Work: A Song of Triumph,” 1914
I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? . . .So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over the toil of labors under the sun . . . What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This is also vanity.”
– The Book of Ecclesiastes, excerpts from Chapter 2
The importance of work and blessedness of industry was a virtue I took to heart at an early age. “Even Adam and Eve had work to do in Garden of Eden,” my parents would tell me and my siblings. Leave it to the LaPlacas to introduce a bit prelapsarian cheerfulness into taking out the trash. But the general gist of their argument worked on me. I can usually find something to appreciate something about any job, even if it is only the satisfaction of checking off an item on the to-do list. (As has been previously recorded, I also have crippling guilt about being bored).
I’ve learned to enjoy a bit of toil. Following the vein modeled in the battle cry-celebration of work penned by poet and suffragette Angela Morgan, I have tried aggressively to find the triumphant “delight” of a job—the part of it that satisfies me, the part that—to borrow a choice bit of old-fashioned hyperbole—“sets the brain and the soul on fire.” It’s satisfying to watch things get clean as you scrub them with soap and some elbow grease. And it’s a privilege to have work that challenges your mind (I really have no right to complain about my work, but I’m going tojust a little bit). I get sincere pleasure out of marshalling ideas and facts into my own brain and then sometimes into comprehensible formation to communicate to others.
But work can be cursedly, frustratingly difficult. What if there is no delight to be found? What if the task at hand has no purpose outside of itself? What if no amount of “ardour” can make it interesting? What if there are too many problems to fix? What if you have not one but five W-2s on the first tax return you file by yourself? What if you know nobody will read that cover letter you slaved over? What happens to the satisfaction of checking something off a list when that list grows ever longer? What if the “good heat” of work becomes the unrelenting scorching beams of an unshaded sun that withers one’s energy while it is still young on the branch?
We live in no paradise and it’s only through the sweat of our brows, pain in the process, and lessons in futility that we get anything accomplished on this our earthly home.
If you didn’t pick up on this already, I’ve been reading the book of Ecclesiastes with my small group. The book is a dreary collection of wisdom about the ephemeral nature and painful limitation of human life under the sun. Variations on this dirge-like theme continue throughout the book. However, as we’ve been reading, I haven’t found the many pronouncements of gloom as depressing as I thought I might.
It’s wonderfully cathartic to wallow in the truth, that, yes, some work is just uninteresting, futile, back-breaking, soul crushing toil—and it will never be fulfilling. Once this inauspicious premise is accepted, it makes the glimmers of hope that simultaneously appear throughout Ecclesiastes gleam brighter in comparison. Immediately following the passage in this post’s epigraph, the Preacher declares, “There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat, and drink, and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God” (2:13). Joy is possible, despite the general dire tone. Elsewhere he says that “two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil” (4:9).
I filed my taxes this year with a friend from my small group who sneakily paid for our take-out and then let me moan as I toiled through my W-2s, while she read out numbers, helped me figure out forms, and provided the kindest moral support.
A year ago today, I wrote about boredom—and, oh, how times have changed! At this moment, I’d love to be lackadaisically bored. But there’s good work to be done (even if there is too much of it). Even the seemingly unredeemable aspects of work—when it is shared with another person—can become a bit less toilsome and bit more triumphant and delightful.
After a trial-by-fire year as public school substitute teacher and fly-by-night freelancer, Julia will shed the tribulations of the work-world to embark on a MA in art history and museum studies at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH. If you are in town, she’ll gladly take you to a local museum. She enjoys walks, leopard print, and good conversation.
