Stephen

=The Holiness of Labor=





"I got thinkin' how we was holy when we was one thing, an' mankin' was holy when it was one thing. An' it on'y got unholy when one mis'able little fella got the bit in his teeth an' run off his own way, kickin' an' draggin' an' fightin'. Fella like that bust the holiness. But when they're all workin' together, not one fella for another fella, but one fella kinda harnessed to the whole shebang-that's right, that's holy,"

- John Steinbeck, //The Grapes of Wrath//. 1939.



Excerpt from "Freedom's Plow"

When a man starts out with nothing, When a man starts out with his hands Empty, but clean, When a man starts to build a world, He starts first with himself And the faith that is in his heart- The strength there, The will there to build.

First in the heart is the dream- Then the mind starts seeking a way. His eyes look out on the world, On the great wooded world, On the rich soil of the world, On the rivers of the world.

The eyes see there materials for building, See the difficulties, too, and the obstacles. The mind seeks a way to overcome these obstacles. The hand seeks tools to cut the wood, To till the soil, and harness the power of the waters. Then the hand seeks other hands to help, A community of hands to help- Thus the dream becomes not one man’s dream alone, But a community dream. Not my dream alone, but our dream. Not my world alone, But your world and my world, Belonging to all the hands who build.

- Langston Hughes



"The last clear definite function of man - muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need - this is man. To build a wall, to build a house, a dam, and in the wall and house and dam to put something of Manself, and to Manself take back something of the wall, the house, the dam; to take hard muscles from the lifting, to take the clear lines and form from conceiving. For man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments."

- John Steinbeck, //The Grapes of Wrath//. 1939.

Reflection on the Holiness of Labor American Revelry

https://amlit-kaplan.wikispaces.com/American+Revelry