Labor Day

MONDAY, SEPT. 6, 1999, 6:12 AM
FARM, STUDY

You wanted to have a Teaching this morning, but you were not getting up, even after you awoke, as early as necessary. So I used My “tried and true” technique – the thought of something dangerous and scary. You got up fast… the damage doesn’t seem severe… and here you are, ready to hear Me, your friendly Holy Spirit.

It is a holiday, the one symbolizing the end of summer and the commencement of fall. And it also was, originally, a commemoration of labor or work… the work of the world and those who “did it.” Therefore it is a supremely secular holiday, for it is “dedicated” to what must be done to live on this planet earth. In the Garden of Eden story I, as Father God, created the first humans and gave them an easy life… no work necessary and only one prohibition. You disobeyed, a sin; you were “out of there,” and labor became necessary.

You could say, I suppose, that work was a punishment for that “original sin,” but I see it just as what is necessary to live and thrive on a physical earth, with physical bodies. Your life work is done. You no longer “labor” in the classroom… and over student papers. Yet you choose to live on a place and in a style that still requires work. You can contrast this life of yours with that of your parents in the last years of their retirement – in their “high in the sky” apartment, with virtually no work necessary to live their quiet, conservative life… and with even less work required after they moved in with Joanne and Howard.

You “plan” to spend the rest of this earth life of yours here, but you are also realizing that it is harder to get yourself to do the work that’s necessary to have animals, and to have the place looking somewhat neat. But, then, it doesn’t seem likely that you’ll live as long as your parents did, with the losses they “incurred.” And you’re probably right.

The work you did as a teacher-coach-professor does come close to being holy. What you did helped to make the lives of some students, at least, better, motivating them to follow you as educators. Much of the “work of the world,” in your culture, is just for the earning of money, so that life can be more comfortable, more “modern.” I see much waste of resources, some that finally will be irreplaceable. Thus, eventually (but not in your era of life), life will be simpler again, because this generation “wanted too much.” And it may not be as sad as some envision.

It is bothersome to you that your motivations to “labor” sufficiently to keep this place neat and “clean” are diminishing. It is worrisome, for you, to be satisfied with the “messy” nature of a place that you once kept better. You hope that heat and humidity are the main deterring factors… that the coolness of Fall may be a “better time” to labor comfortably. You are disappointed with your garden, and you should be. But will you do better next year, or are you moving too fast toward the life that you saw in your Dad?

A basic question for you now is – how hard should you try to be actively working here… and to what extent should you just accept that you’ll be less and less an active worker with each passing year? You’ll have to answer this anew, each day, almost with each potential task. I can’t answer it for you, but I still favor your having this as your home place… and looking better than it does now.

You still have “dreams” of riches coming to you, by chance and “unearned.” The waste of money on these chances is not excessive, no worse than some other, unrecognized wastes. At the same time you feel fortunate to have the retirement income you have, and you try to use it somewhat wisely and carefully.