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Perhaps today is your return from a “last of summer” Labor Day holiday. Or maybe this is the season you have returned to sheltering-in-place. Perhaps you worked through the holiday – either in a paid role or as a volunteer or doing home projects. In all the places you were, you were the fabric of America. Let me say that again, wherever you are, whatever you do, whatever you engage in with action, thought or speech, you are part of the warp and the weft of this country we claim.
About 4 months ago, I read John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. It’s an incredibly strong book with a lot to contemplate. This quote about America has stayed with me since that reading:
“We all have that heritage, no matter what old land our fathers left. All colors and blends of Americans have somewhat the same tendencies. It’s a breed – selected out by accident. And so we’re overbrave and overfearful – we’re kind and cruel as children. We’re overfriendly and at the same time frightened of strangers. We boast and are impressed. We’re over-sentimental and realistic. We are mundane and materialistic – and do you know of any other nation that acts for ideals? We eat too much. We have no taste, no sense of proportion. We throw our energy about like waste. In the old lands they say of us that we go from barbarism to decadence without an intervening culture. Can it be that our critics have not the key or the language of our culture?”
I am especially struck by these two phrases: “it’s a breed – selected out of accident” and “we go from barbarism to decadence without an intervening culture.” It reminds me that we are born of an ideal, a creed, a hope. Something yet unformed.
Getting to that ideal has always been a messy proposition. Labor Day points us both back and forward to the messiness of creating a good and safe and strong place for the American worker to step into opportunity and to build an ever-evolving good and safe and strong nation.
As we have shared before, Labor Day was created to pay tribute to the American worker. The holiday was specifically created by the labor movement (labor unions) and became a holiday in 1894. That was 127 years ago. Back then, those who labored as part of the Industrial Revolution, moving off the farm or from other countries and into the cities, generally worked 12-hour days, 7 days a week. That’s if they were fortunate enough to find work. Children began working at 5 or 6.
As is often true, the need for change came only after unrest, riots, strikes, and death. The holiday was created by Congress as a way to repair relationships with workers and labor unions. Today we struggle as we have through all our years with disease, malaise, political missteps, societal changes, and the desire to get better to be better. It’s in the American DNA to shake off this malaise and this anger we are holding.
Let’s choose to be neither “over brave” nor “over fearful.” Both bravado and fear close our minds to possibilities, to kindness, to connection. Let’s make the “accident” of our country continue to create a country whose ideals are strong and whose actions continue to move us towards the good.
For my part, I am practicing leaning in, listening, but then leaning out and taking time to discern what is calling me. A lot isn’t calling me, of course. A lot is simply loud discord. Still, in reflection, I am finding threads of truth, places where I can play a small and simple part that I hope draws us back up out of the turbulence and onto fertile land.
It’s the American worker (no matter the role we play, there is always work) who will create our next set of dreams. And by their labor (our labor) we will see those dreams become reality. I want to be part of the curious, part of the solution seekers. My guess is that you want the same.
I hope you enjoyed the holiday. Goodness knows we needed it. We are collectively exhausted. I pause here to pray for healthcare workers, educators, soldiers, emergency workers struggling to keep up, business owners, clergy – all those who are working ever so hard to keep the fabric of our country whole. It’s time to get to work. To mending. To creating new cloth.
I am once again being drawn to the John Kennedy quote: “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” We all have a part and I hope, like me, you are discerning the part that belongs to you.
I’d love to hear from you.
