American Work Ethic

Joshua Claybourn points us to a commentary on how America is "is still the hardest working country in the industrialized world". This got me to thinking about work and life. The ensuing commentary focused on the difficulty of work and the terrible state of America that requires two income families. Some energy was spent around vacations and retirement.

But I have sort of a problem with that: why is there such a focus on not working? i.e., vacations, retirement, living for the weekend and being independently wealthy? It's not that I don't enjoy the weekends or a good vacation--the Lord does command rest one day out of seven--but there is such a large part of the middle that we tend to miss. I think that when we look at work as a necessary evil rather than a potential good, we miss out. In fact, it's wrong. Work is not evil, but the conditions that we work under that are evil--Adam's job was to work the cursed earth, not cursed to work the earth.

Work, for most of us, is the here and now. I happen to enjoy work, I also happen to enjoy my family even more. But I cannot focus on one to the exclusion of the other--that would be disasterous.

What happened to finding the good in the labor? To know that work is part of a larger whole and finding means of self-expression through work? To see how your work can serve others? To say that you cannot do any of these things devalues and demeans a significant, necessary and important part of life.