What is work work work?

Driving the 40 minutes home from the university tonight, my mind drifted to the subject of work. This came about, because of a discussion about work in church. I don't know what happens in church in New York or Paris, but in Utah, when the subject comes up, the conversation inevitably turns to physical labor. Work is physical. The only valued kind of work is physical. If you're not busting your back, you're not doing enough. As the hymn used to read, before they changed it, "The world has no need for a drone." Maybe someone finally pointed out the value of drones in the hive.

So we get stories about work. From the book blurb on Deseret Book's site, "There are two kinds of people in this world, those who choose to act and those who are acted upon. In 1856 John Rowe Moyle and his family chose to act by leaving their beloved England, crossing the plains with the Ellsworth handcart company to eventually settle in Alpine, Utah. Soon after their arrival John Moyle was called by Brigham Young to work as a stone mason on the Salt Lake Temple. For 20 years he walked the 22 miles to Salt Lake City to chisel his deepest convictions into granite. Even after an accident causes him to lose his leg, John continued his sojourn to the temple site each week until his death."

In my mind the story teller has the intention of inflicting pain on the listeners, to convince them that no matter what they do, they'll never do enough. We should follow that man's example, and since we can't do enough, we'll be weighed in the balance and found wanting. It's a poisonous story for those of us who decide to do other kinds of work.

Work often comes up in the context of faith and works. More discussions than I care to count bring up the fable of the man who has two oars on his boat. One oar has "faith" engraved on it, the other "works." The discussion then leads to the notion that faith without works is dead. The reverse has, to my memory, never been discussed. Faith gets short shrift.

A friend, who lives in a very nice neighborhood, had her son out mowing the lawn. A neighbor asked her why she was making her son mow the lawn. "He needs to learn to work," she said.

"Do you want him to mow lawns his whole life? Why don't you have him taking classes, going to summer camps to learn useful work, professional work, not hard labor?"

Good question, I say. I grew up with bi-polar attitudes about work. My parents had an acre of land in Salt Lake City with a small stream running through. That piece of land was labor intensive. A third of it was garden, irrigated from the stream. Raspberries, strawberries, corn, potatoes, cucumbers, all the healthy food imaginable. I spent part or all of every day in the summer working alone or with one or both parents on that place. Tilling the garden, shoveling the weeds off the dirt road out to the main road. Spreading manure. Picking berries. And, of course, mowing the very hilly lawn that made up another third of the property. In winter it was shoveling the several hundred feet of snow from the walks surrounding the property.

Sleeping in on a Saturday morning was not an option. My four foot eight, 90 pound mother would be trying to start the lawn mower by the window, which was directly over my bed in the basement. I always managed to ignore this until my grandmother, who was living with us, would start calling down the stairs. "Tom, are you going to let your little mother mow that lawn?"

When mother passed away, the question arose whether I wanted to buy the house and property. My answer was firm and final: No. That place sucked the life out of vacations, lazy summer days, or any form of recreation. No. I'd spent enough of my youth out there, thank you very much. I had seen what it took to manage a property like that, and I wanted no more of it.

Now work for me is trying to paint a picture, write a blog, or teach a class. Thinking is work. Creating is work. Or is it? Is it enough, or should I still be out in the garden working to store food for the year's supply like a squirrel with its cheeks full of nuts? I want to hear from any of you with experience in this matter. What is work to you? What was work to you? I know some of you have feelings about this. I'm not going to say your name, but let's get this discussion going.