A few months ago, when I offered to lead today’s Labor Day service, I originally had in mind something of a celebration. Taking my lead from Walt Whitman’s classic poem “I Hear America Singing,” I thought of celebrating the chorus of “strong melodious songs” that Whitman’s poetic ear heard emanating from the daily work of so-called ordinary people.
Like Whitman I wanted to tell the stories of mechanics and carpenters, of mothers who work at home, or outside the home, or both—of working people in general whose labor makes our cars run, who build the places where we live our lives, and clean up the messes we leave behind. I wanted to talk about the pride and meaning this kind of work can give us…the sense of satisfaction that “belongs to him or her and to none else” when the work that we do contributes to something necessary and real and larger than ourselves.
I had also hoped to recount a few of the hard-won victories of the American labor movement from the past century—the eight-hour workday and paid leave, job safety regulations, laws that protect our children from working in sweatshops and coalmines—all of these among the many gains that workers have struggled and even died for over the years.
The “bread and roses” refrain from today’s opening hymn, in fact, was inspired by one such struggle: women workers used it as their slogan during a textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912.
During the historic strike, the women demanded and won better working conditions and a livable wage (the bread part of the slogan), but they also insisted on being treated with dignity and to have opportunities to improve the quality of life for themselves and their families (the roses part).
Honoring such victories and celebrating the lives of working people is, I suppose, the original intention of tomorrow’s holiday—at the very least, I’m sure it wasn’t meant as an excuse for yet another holiday sale. But a funny thing happened to me on the way to writing the celebratory sermon I originally had in mind: I went to work.
And like most working people today, what I hear when I go to work is not the robust work carols that Whitman extols in his inspiring albeit idealized poem. What I hear when I go to work every day isn’t America singing at all, unless it’s singing the blues. With all apologies to Walt Whitman, I hear American workers (myself included) not singing but sighing: sighing tiredly from overwork, stagnant wages, little respect, and an ever-flattening quality of life.
More at:
http://uufe-dialogue.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_archive.html
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
