With September comes the familiar rituals of going “back to school,” a moment in the year which always contains a faint echo of the distant rhythms of harvest time. When growing season would approach its end, fruits and fields would need to be gleaned, gathered, and mowed. Our overflowing grocery stores—stocked with produce of various kinds—remind us of both these extant agricultural practices and the deeper cultural meaning that this time of year still carries. Before winter sets in, we are granted a final season for work.
But the meaning of work has come into question. In an economy where online streamers and social media influencers can make more than those holding down either blue- or white-collar jobs, the very notions of labour, work, and value have become nebulous at best. With the ubiquity of screens, attention itself has become a site of “financial speculation,” with views of online videos and impressions of social media posts driving the growth of ever-expanding advertising budgets and the bottom lines of firms that hawk their wares in these spaces. Our work has become the tax we pay to consume the very content that only encourages further consumption; increasingly, the so-called real world exists to support a spectral (and speculative) online life, mediated through our screens and reflected in purchases that further reinforce our proclivities. Little wonder, then, that a certain technology company has recently rebranded itself, taking as its name the Greek prefix, meta, which means “beyond” or “above:” the mundane world where we live our lives and fulfill our duties is now figured as a realm to be transcended and surpassed.
The rise of novel technologies has been disruptive—and the resulting pathologies have been destructive, without any doubt. Authentic rest has been replaced with binge-watching and the descent down internet rabbit holes, and our duties in the analogue world of atom now frequently offer us a break from the hypnotic trance of the world of electrons. But even though modern technology has, to some extent, inverted the normal, healthy cycles of labour and leisure, we must, nevertheless, acknowledge that our warped attitudes towards work and its meaning precede their appearance; even serious Christians tend to see the obligations of daily life as postlapsarian impositions which are more to be endured than embraced.
It is true that, after The Fall, nature brought forth thorns and thistles where it once had freely yielded bountiful crops from untilled fields. It is true that, when man became subject to his passions, suffering, and effortful labour, childbearing for women and bread-winning for men were the consequence. But while Original Sin harms creation, it does not destroy it, and the damage and disunity which flows from it should not obscure the continuity of man’s vocation before and after his calamitous fall from grace. Adam and Eve, after all, had already been enjoined to be fruitful and multiply, and to subdue the earth as well (Gen 1:28); indeed, the creation account which opens Genesis, culminates, as Hannah Arendt once observed, in the creation of a creator—a pro-creator of children and a co-creator of a divinely established order of cosmic significance.
Nowhere in the Christian scriptures is the goodness of work more evident than in their most famous lacuna: the so-called hidden life of Jesus, which was a hidden life of prayer and of work. The Divine Word is silent, in Nazareth, as He fulfills His duties as a man. In a sense, He completes His work as a Man before turning to the work of the Man-God: our Salvation.
The need for work is something that the early Church discovered organically. In seeking perfection, the first Christians initially attempted to imitate the angels, secluding themselves from both the world and neighbour in order to serve God exclusively. Quickly, however, their vocations became more human: they gathered into communities and willingly (and loving) assumed the duties of mortal men. St. Benedict, who formalized the monastic way of life, reduced this vocation to two essential elements: “ora et labora,” pray and work.
Inflation continues to ravage Western economies, and our work, quite literally, is losing its value day by day. But it is precisely for this reason that we need to be reminded of the metaphysical value of our work: by providing for our families (in whatever ways we can), we dispose of a solemn duty even as we perform a work of charity. Our families, after all, are “the poor” whom we “always have with (us)” (Mt 26:11).
Indeed, work itself, when done in the right spirit, is an end in itself—a fact that longstanding pro-lifers know only too well. We perfect ourselves in efforts that seem to have no immediate benefit or obvious effect; in living out our obedience to the call of the present moment, we put our proverbial loaves and fishes at the disposal of the Master who is able to work amazing miracles through them. But we must first render Him the humble works of our hands. While our daily work may be unglamorous, it is not unsanctified—nor un-sanctifying; in fact, it is through our honest efforts that the mortal world is renewed, and our immortal souls are shaped. As the year approaches its end, then, we should recognize the gift that every opportunity to contribute our time and talents represents. Let us work while it is day, “for night cometh, when no man can work” (Jn 9:4).
