In sweat of thy brow…!Reflections on human labour in view of May Day

Human life is filled with contradictions of all sorts. It is quite surprising that each of us has these contradiction within us. We see people who would like to score first rank and yet hate to spend time studying. We see people trying to be rich without working hard. Short cuts are being taught from books to blogs, from personal sharing to great preaching. Short cuts are offered because people hate hard work. This is the contradiction in life.
One such contradiction is regarding manual work. We hate to do manual labour. We associate manual labour with suffering, sadness and displeasure. Walter R. Courtenay said, “God gave man work, not to burden him, but to bless him, and useful work, willingly cheerfully, effectively done, has always been the finest expression of the human spirit.”
The same sentiments are shared by Jawaharlal Nehru when he said, “ We must get rid of the extraordinary notion that manual work is degrading. There is nothing more ennobling than manual work and nothing better for physical and mental health.” Manual labour tackles most of the issues relating to the physiological needs.
At the same time we see such a lot of exploitation that is physical in nature. Exploiting the hard work of others has become the order of the day. Indira Gandhi once said, “There are two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there.” Thus work or human labour spares us of all the vices that follows the undue pursuit of wealth.
In fact, Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice and need(greed). That is the reason why Don Bosco himself said, “An idle mind is the workshop of the devil.” We keep the youth busy and make them do a lot of manual work to keep them away from all vices and to save them from boredom. It is because of labour that life assumes its beauty and grandeur.
The fruit derived from labour is the sweetest of all pleasures. Maxim Gorky said, “When work is pleasure, life is a joy! When work is a duty, life is slavery.”
Labour disgraces no man; unfortunately, you occasionally find men who disgrace labour. We see great men who begin mega ventures, but, don’t we understand that it is labour that helps to complete the work? Joseph Joubert rightly said, “Genius begins great works; labour alone finishes them. “
To save our own self only one thing is absolutely necessary: a liking for work. Many great men have hailed manual labour as the only panacea for poverty, sickness, melancholy and all other ills and woes of humanity. Even the highest level of God experience is presented in the form of human labour. God is truly present in the poor people who toil and labour. Tagore gave us this beautiful truth in the following lines:
Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads!
Whom dost thou worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors all shut?
Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee!
He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground
and where the pathmaker is breaking stones.
He is with them in sun and in shower,
and his garment is covered with dust.
Put off thy holy mantle and even like him come down on the dusty soil!
Come out of thy meditations and leave aside thy flowers and incense!
What harm is there if thy clothes become tattered and stained?
Meet him and stand by him in toil and in sweat of thy brow.
In toil and sweat, can we experience the true God, our God who struggled, suffered, toiled and died to save us.