The Worker

"Hell is not to love anyone, anymore"  --author George Bernanos, The Diary of a Country Priest

It's a lifetime job. When we think we just can't do it another day, always something intervenes, and we go on; we find the light, the way beyond to the challenge to love once more, one more day.
Love, they say, is a gift; a gift from God. Its origins are mysterious, its source an eternal well springing forth cool waters, peace for our soul. Yet it 's the one, single thing that makes work easier because of  this love we bear for each other, even in unexpected moments. 
The Work, tasks undertaken for others, becomes incrementally more and more difficult to the degree in which conflict  (read: conflict as the ego-who-is-I) enters; quarreling, dissension, hearts full with a Spirit of Criticism, or Competition; those drain the purpose for our being, the reasons for which we live every day. This makes many sad in their day and feeling life without good purpose.

An important distinction to make is the difference between shining a light upon oneself and a light shone upon others. We are Workers, here to bear the faults of others patiently, with grace and the prayerful hope that living in any given moment, we may share that grace with others.

Be humble in the Work, engage with mutual charity; see all and yet remain simple minded. Although some will surely say that you are blind, that you do not see the faults and crimes of others. Be still, because you do. 
The difficulty is not seeing the faults, for they are very often so obvious to onlookers, but  have the courage to look past them to the grace and the beauty that surely is there. To see others virtues, positive aspects and skills, and encourage their development, is a crucial activity of the Christian Worker.

The community which is composed of lay people, those lacking formal, religious training from say a monastery or a convent, may initially find it difficult to regulate themselves as a group working within the frame of Christ's charity; Saint Paul knew this well. 
The Bible records many a letter from Paul to the early Christian communities exhorting them to practice and follow the ways, the teachings of the Christ. Thus the temptation to criticize is strong, the will to patience may be weak.
 
Yet we must always recall that each and everyone has come to community of his or her own free will; the Spirit has moved them there. Sometimes within a community the most overtly passionate, the most open and strong willed among us, those who speech is aggressive, whose passion flows towards a state of "activism," who are quick to call out others-- those ones will indeed find division. Without good leadership such persons may undo the work of service that the Christian community is called to. This antithesis of the Catholic Worker movement is decidedly detrimental to the growth of the faithful. 

With division fully operational, it is not hard to imagine why things are not running smoothly, why the spirit of peace and justice do not materialize. Leaders, true christian leaders are hard to find. The very best are as the Beatitudes preach: humble, kindhearted, steadfast, filled with the love of the Holy Spirit. It is sometimes these very virtues that make it hard for the humble to assume leadership. Yet like Saint Paul, they must.

The Christian Worker movement is one in which each member may, through his or her daily work, find peace and the love of the Christ, returned to them thru those whom they serve and in return, quite possibly, discover on their own, personal reasons  what is important in life, and what they will do in that lifetime.

 Responding to this challenge of the work of a lifetime is found in our beating hearts, alongside the love each brings, the love they bear. In doing the Work, love, we learn, is not the least weak; it's strong, patient, kind, forbearing, slow to seek revenge, sooner to seek peace through forgiveness. 
This love is not a brittle, fickle affection; rather a hard won, passionate love as the Christ on the Cross who endures. Those following in His steps are the Workers, the Jesus people.
Corinthians 13

Finding Meaning in Everyday Work and Love

Rose of All the World
by poet D.H. Lawrence

I am here myself; as though this heave of effort
At starting other life, fulfilled my own;
Rose-leaves that whirl in colour round a core
Of seed-specks kindled lately and softly blown

By all the blood of the rose-bush into being -
Strange, that the urgent will in me, to set
My mouth on hers in kisses, and so softly
To bring together two strange sparks, beget

Another life from our lives, so should send
The innermost fire of my own dim soul out-spinning
And whirling in blossom of flame and being upon me!
That my completion of manhood should be the beginning

Another life from mine! For so it looks.
The seed is purpose, blossom accident.
The seed is all in all, the blossom lent
To crown the triumph of this new descent.

Is that it, woman? Does it strike you so?
The Great Breath blowing a tiny seed of fire
Fans out your petals for excess of flame,
Till all your being smokes with fine desire?

Or are we kindled, you and I, to be
One rose of wonderment upon the tree
Of perfect life, and is our possible seed
But the residuum of the ecstasy?

How will you have it? - the rose is all in all,
Or the ripe rose-fruits of the luscious fall?
The sharp begetting, or the child begot?
Our consummation matters, or does it not?

To me it seems the seed is just left over
From the red rose-flowers' fiery transience;
Just orts and slarts; berries that smoulder in the bush
Which burnt just now with marvellous immanence.

Blossom, my darling, blossom, be a rose
Of roses unchidden and purposeless; a rose
For rosiness only, without an ulterior motive;
For me it is more than enough if the flower unclose.

While the above is poetry by the famed novelist D. H. Lawrence; the Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, another important literary figure, also suffered similar questions about the meaning of life.
Both men had strong religious and spiritual experiences in their boyhoods. Tolstoy's novels include War and Peace and Anna Karenina, translated from Russian into English, standing out as some of his best.  A deeply spiritual man, Tolstoy, often wrestled with questions about the meaning of life. A scion of a well to do family, he received an excellent education; he married a beautiful woman, fathered 13 children, possessed considerable inherited wealth, and he suffered from periods of serious depression. At times thought he might kill himself.

Writing in a book he titled,  A Confession, Tolstoy chronicles his long search for the meaning of his life. He writes of a desire to bury himself in writing to avoid these other issues in his life; unsure and sometimes conflicted about his life’s deeper meaning, Tolstoy fell in and out of depression. Life events often were the trigger for his depressive episodes. Living through these times was deeply challenging to him. As he aged, they became more severe and longer lasting.

Pondering what he saw as possible meaning, he contrasted this awareness with the knowledge of sure death, the end of mortal life. He recoiled from the thought that all that he was in the world would be annihilated at the moment of his death. Eventually he stumbled upon the “Sermon on the Mount” and was deeply inspired by it. He came to see that his deepest, truest purpose was to forge a living relationship with a loving, creative god.

He now saw his purpose in doing the work of illuminating the Kingdom of Heaven on earth (Both men in fact often write about the kingdom of heaven, using representational symbols). This revelation relieved and changed him; he viewed himself and others in this new light. For the first time, those who had served him and his family, for as long as their lifetimes, were treated with kindness and respect for their efforts. He gave to the poor in his community and dedicated his remaining years to the improvement of the lives of those less fortunate that he. Leo Tolstoy, novelist, wealthy heir, landowner, found peace and a deep, abiding love in the life of service, through following the Christ.