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Sweat Equity
Happy Monday! Today I am going to spend the day helping friends with some work involving power tools, felling dead trees, and other duties as assigned!
Manual labor is my friend and I have always taken comfort in the way one must give oneself completely to the task — body, mind, and spirit. There is great wisdom in the Benedictine phrase “ora et labora” — pray and work. It’s something we can practice in any of the work we do. And while I love my various ministries, I also find great satisfaction in “sweat equity” … allowing the physical work of my hands to count towards something, to contribute to a greater good, to be personally cleansing and renewing.
So what’s your favorite form of “sweat equity”? What about it inspires you to give it your all?
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When I am writing, I feel pulled to give everything I can. I feel so at peace and loved and loving when I am able to emotionally pull words out and experiences and thoughts of my own and some from others.
When I am singing, I feel that same way.
Dancing! Even though I chose a career in academia (literature to be precise), my first passion of dancing (most especially tap) still holds an important place in my life. There is something wonderful about literally moving as the spirit inspires, so to speak, and I love experiencing this by myself as well as with my dance students. My ability to dance is a gift from God, and dancing in worship brings things full circle in a beautiful and awesome way.
I, like you SJ like the feeling of fatigue at the end of a hard day’s manual labour. I like the feeling of satisfaction when the house is clean, or the flowers are planted. I like taking in fresh clothes from the clothesline, however my personal favourite is cooking. The smells and the sounds of cooking are like a song to me. Baking bread, cookies and pies is for me a labour of love. The smell of a home cooked meal and the feeling of satisfaction that I helped to make my family healthy and strong are priceless for me. Now I know this all sounds very 1950′s housewife – ish, but I also enjoy carrying in the firewood, fixing the toilet and shoveling the drive in the winter. I’m very much the independent woman of the 21st century.
None of my family, friends, business or church members/colleagues would call me a manual labor type of person. Up until a few years ago, the most manual labor I completed was cleaning my apartment, re-arranging furniture, watering flowers and walking/using weights to stay healthy.
However, when my Mom got sick, I was one of her caretakers. I would help her get in/out of bed, give her showers, make her meals, take her to the store, doctors, labs, hospitals and help her complete her home physical therapy. God called Mom to eternal life and now, I am completing some of the same functions with my Dad. And, I spend some time helping out with the elderly Sisters/Nuns in our area.
While it’s not a great deal of manual labor, I love the tasks. These loving, kind and holy people are quite grateful for any task that I do for them. I love their funny and sentimental stories, their smiles, their hugs, their suggestions, their perseverance, their tenderness, their humility, their wisdom, and their prayers. I look forward to our visits and pray that I provide love, hope, peace, joy and comfort to all. I feel very close to God when I am with them.
Eventually, my unemployment will end and I will return to full time work. However, I now know … that I will continue this volunteer caretaking for these very special individuals who need assistance. And, they will continue to bless and enrich my life beyond measure.
Peace to all,
Kathleen
For me gardening. Digging the soil, seeing the earthworms and other living creatures in the soil, planting new or moving existing plants and seeing their root systems, knowing that these systems allow the plant to breathe and live as God intended. Even planning the garden, thinking of the labor needed and the wonderful final outcome. The sharing of these living plants with God and His overall plan, knowing that we are part of the same God given world.
Gardening is peace and sharing in God’s creation at such a basic level. And afterward, the beauty isn’t bad either!
Manual labor has become one of my favorite activities.
When I first started taking part in ANL, I thought of my apartment as a” kind of a convent” for a ” kind of” a sister. My friends all thought of me in those terms also because of the Gregorian Chant usually playing and the church incense often burning and my decorating choices of nuns and saints. This did not inspire me to manual labor however, but rather reading from my fair sized religious library.
Soon after starting ANL, I learned about modern day eremitic life and it clicked with me. One of the hermits I read said, “One day you will be doing something in your apt. and you will realise that it has become a hermitage.” That happened for me. For some reason I had started WORKING on my apt., doing all the labor myself. I’ve painted and refinished furniture and refinished my hardwood floors, replaced the screen on my screen door etc. As hermits write their own Rule, as directed by the Holy Spirit, I realise that hard work has to be part of mine.
Lately I’ve been given smiles and looks of respect from my postman, the gardeners, and plumbers and other working women and men. While my neighbors have looked like they think I’ve taken leave of my senses, when I say I’m not being paid, not even reimbursed for supplies. Somehow that’s important and the key to my happy labor. My sympathies are with those who are paid minimum wage for hard work. Women especially are exploited for their hard work, and receive little gratitude or respect, if any. Now that I understand, I will always be grateful for their services and be sure they know.
Recently I’ve been painting my outside window frames. I’m up fairly high on a step ladder and it’s been 100 degrees for a week and I’ve been sweating until I’m soaking wet and my face is dripping enough to either fertilize or kill the plants be low. It’s wonderful and I love it. I called to my postman last week and he looked all around until he looked up and saw me. He asked if I was painting the windows, and I answered only the frames, and we both had a good laugh, and it was lovely.
Hi ho, hi ho….
Love, Julia
Writing and music.
JMJ+
~Izzie
Totus tuus Maria! Let’s see what the good God wills.
although i write for a salary, being a groundskeeper was my favorite job ever…push-mowing a football field even though i had a tractor, digging up weeds so the church looked better in that year than it ever had before or has since, lining sidewalks with clean lines dug fresh daily, trimming hedges, planting trees. god is in the dirt and grass and sweat of caring for the earth. i love it more than anything; even though i cannot breathe if i do not write, writing has no value without the sweat and beautiful smells of hard physical work.