Why does work matter?

Six months ago, I started getting newspapers delivered to my house.

And to my daily frustration, they would deliver the newspaper to the front of our town-home complex, which is about 40 yards from my front door.

I would trudge out in my boots in sub-zero temperatures and daydream about one day picking up my newspaper in slippers right next to my front door.

I tried everything to fix this problem:

I wrote Post-it notes on the gate of our complex.

I left letters where the paper would get dropped.

I even included a request in the Christmas bonus envelope.

Nothing changed.

So I did what any exhausted and frustrated person does: I told our daughter, Fiona, to do it.

I remember sitting down at the table next to her and saying, “Fiona, I’ve got a new job for you. You get to walk outside all by yourself, and go and get the newspapers, and bring them back to us.”

I immediately saw her eyes light up with excitement.

The first day, I see her go outside like a thoroughbred horse jumping out of the gates at the Kentucky Derby. She shoots down the alleyway, gathers up the papers and scampers back in almost no time.

Then I see the smile on her face. The pride in knowing that she did something, by herself, that was a service to the family.

For Fiona, this was not a mundane task, or a source of frustration: Getting the newspaper every day is a source of freedom, of responsibility and of dignity.

And that is what work, and a job, provides all of us.

This is why Bryce Hill’s report that 35% of small businesses were shut down because of the government’s response to COVID-19 hit me emotionally. It’s not just the businesses and dreams that were crushed, but more importantly the thousands of jobs that were eradicated. What the government did was take away more than just a paycheck; it took away people’s dignity and labeled them as less than “essential.”

This is a concept St. John Paul II outlined in his encyclical, “Laborem Exercens.” John Paul saw that work and jobs were a part of something bigger. They were central to who we are as a society. He says:

“The fact that human work is a key, probably the essential key, to the whole social question, if we try to see that question really from the point of view of man’s good. […] Work is a good thing for man — a good thing for his humanity — because through work man not only transforms nature, adapting it to his own needs, but he also achieves fulfillment as a human being and indeed, in a sense, becomes ‘more a human being.’”

At the 40th anniversary of this encyclical, we see jobs are more than a task. They are what make us “more a human being.” For millions of Illinoisans, government action took away more than just their jobs.

This is why all jobs are “essential” — regardless of the relative importance arbitrarily bestowed upon them by a few politicians. There is dignity and humanity in making a bed, washing dishes, cleaning restrooms, acting and playing music, redefining physics, and yes, even retrieving the newspaper.

John Paul goes on to conclude that, “in fact, in the final analysis it is always man who is the purpose of the work, whatever work it is that is done by man — even if the common scale of values rates it as the merest ‘service,’ as the most monotonous even the most alienating work […] It is not only good in the sense that it is useful or something to enjoy; it is also good as being something worthy, that is to say, something that corresponds with man’s dignity, that expresses this dignity and increases it.”

For the past four months, Fiona has woken up, has put on her shoes and has run to the front of our complex to retrieve the newspaper. She has done it in snow and ice, in rain and in sunshine. And every day when she comes back, I see the pride in her face because she knows her job, however simple, has meaning.

Whether you are 3 or 97, the key to our societal challenges is in the dignity and humanity of work. That is why our highest work is to fight for the millions of Illinoisians who have lost their jobs in the past year.

I cringe to think I almost took that away from someone so dear by asking the newspaper carrier to bring our papers directly to the door.

Matt

P.S. While researching this subject, I realized that the Book of Genesis could be considered the first “gospel of work”. As we first encounter God, he is presented in the form of ‘work’ done while creating the world during “six days”.

In other words, one aspect of God is work. And man was created in His image and likeness.

How do we become more like God? You got it!

So to work might be more than just becoming ‘more a human being’… to work is divine.