We are cleaning house today.

My girls have informed me – several times – that the whole point of “Labor Day” is to REST from work. 

And I sympathize with the crankiness of their compliance. Truth be told, I would rather be reading a book than scrubbing toilets. But the house needs cleaning, and this is our window of opportunity to clean it, and we’ll just have to rest when we get done.

Early this morning, before the labors of Labor Day commenced and there was leisure to watch the sun come up, I was entranced by the exquisitely beautiful labors of the hummingbirds currently crowding our back garden. 

These teensiest of birds must constantly labor to keep themselves nourished. Their metabolic rate is so high and the energy they expend seeking nectar so intense that the work of self-feeding is literally never done. They interrupt their pursuit of blossoms only to chase each other away or to pause, briefly, for preening. And they are lovely as they work – a ballet of iridescent wings and fluid, graceful speed.

Important to note: in this frenzy of blurred wings and nectar-sipping there is no discernible resentment. Cranky compliance is not a thing among the hummers; they manifest no corollary to my sweaty frown or my girls’ gritted teeth.

Why is that, I wonder?

Is it that animals are not intelligent enough to resent work?

Or are we humans the ones with a problem – facing that which was intended as part of the “very goodness” of Creation with irritation… grudgingly doing that which must be done… forfeiting the pleasure or grace that might be found in our tasks?

Caveat: I am not trivializing the misery of those who work in inhumane conditions. God did not have sweatshops or coal mines or their ilk in view when He tenderly set humankind to laboring. 

Rather, I am talking about a pervasive tendency in our culture to see “work” as a means to an end rather than an end in itself – we work to get ahead, we work to afford to play, we work because the house is dirty.

And we resent the means in medias res – acting, for example, as if cleaning an air-conditioned house where we are safe and loved and well-provided for were a boring chore rather than a privilege…

Might we be missing something?

A couple of ideas:

First, it seems to me that we have been enculturated to believe that the ultimate point of our working life is to be able to “retire.” Accumulating enough wealth, via our work, to be able to stop working and devote ourselves to full-time play is an interesting concept for a culture to claim as a self-evident virtue. (Recall that God built “leisure” into the template for us; recall that God’s weekly “sabbath” was intended to be worshipful refreshment.) 

If we embrace the Working To Retire concept, then of course the work itself becomes less meaningful to us – we’re only doing it to get “there”, that Holy Grail Season of endless golf or cruises or whatever it is we have fetishized as the objective for our retirement.

Another caveat: I am in no way suggesting that “retirement” is inherently trivial! Some of the most productive and purpose-filled individuals I am blessed to know are those who are leveraging their “retirement” years to do holy work with gusto. Rather, I am suggesting that perhaps the consumer culture paradigm of retirement as a second childhood – Disneyland with booze – is at the back of a lot of working life dissatisfaction.

Second, we have embraced the idea that some work is “beneath us” – that we should out-source tasks that we can afford to pay others to do for us. Businesses ranging from dog-poop-removal companies to personal organizers to extended-hour childcare centers exist because somewhere along the way we have bought the lie that our time has become “too valuable” for us to do some kinds of work. The (usually unintended) consequences include a devaluing of the people whom we pay to do that work for us, as well as an increasing disconnect between us and the work that our lives / lifestyles actually require.

Third, I wonder if the nature of much of our postmodern work is itself the problem? The number of hours each day that we interact with screens as opposed to people – the number of tasks each day that center around data collection rather than creative output – the hyper-connected isolation of “remote work” – surely these evolving characteristics have an impact on our psyches? The “take a walk outside” prescription that so many assume to be a pandemic-era self-help tool really has more to do with the new normal of our working lives: completely disconnected from Creation.

These ideas – muddy and half-baked as they certainly are – push me to pause and look out the window. The hummingbirds are still at it, all these hours later, feeding and fighting and (briefly) resting – exuberantly.

They remind me that I, too, was made for work. That I, too, have a specific constitution that is not accidental – I was designed on purpose – and that my work and my make-up are a custom fit for me. Like the hummingbirds, my working – done right, done exuberantly, done for God – is something beautiful to behold.

Even more deeply thrilling, those hummingbirds remind me that I am a steward of Creation. 

I am a co-laborer with the Creator, whose work of redemption is ongoing. 

So, Friends – and Maggie and JoJo – Happy Labor Day! 

Even better, Good God Work to you, today and forever.