Central West Virginia's Guide To Life

THINGS NEW AND OLD
By Chris Hasse'

10/07 - Will Work for Food

We went to the coast last week for a reunion. Oh, the beautiful sand and sun, the wild ocean, the fresh breezes and the family: nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, grandmas, all mixed up with plenty of ocean spray, hot fudge brownies, wet swimsuits, 3-hour morning tennis sessions, and a memorable tour of the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher.

Aside from getting better acquainted and up to date since our last reunion, came another experience that stirred up some gray matter.

I was walking alone on the beach, and saw a blue-flagged wagon coming toward me in the 95-degree heat. A young woman was pulling the rectangular shaped cooler. She was approximately 22 years old, blond hair pulled away from her flexed brow with an elastic, and attired in some bright beach wear. Her face was red with sun and exertion. She was passing directly to my left, a stark contrast of muscle and willpower to all the lolling, swimming, shell-hunting, surfing and sunning masses around her. I hailed her.

So, is this a self-employed business operation?" I asked, as I saw she was selling water, pop, ice. "No, I work for such and such a place," she said. "My family is here for the summer, but I'm headed for a music college in the fall, and I need to make all the money I can until then. This was all I could find." "What do you play?" I asked. "Sax and clarinet." Way cool, I told her, way cool. And then I asked her what she made an hour. $7.50! $7.50 an hour, for pulling a heavy cooler along the uneven turf of Carolina Beach.

How much is education worth to you? What value do you place on "improving your talent?" What are you willing to trade in muscle, sweat, tears, to learn whatever it is that will stand you on your feet, make you employable, make you useful, make you a blessing? Where does that kind of motivation come from?

There was no clarinet to show off her talent, but somehow I knew she was probably good, good enough to sustain her through the parched throat, the aching muscles, the long unpleasant, no-customers hours, the quiet boredom of the broken shells under her tired feet.

"… this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat." (2 Thessalonians 3:10) No work, no food. This would be an effective principle to guide us. It is written into the very blueprint of our DNA. We are to work to improve ourselves, which is our first and highest duty to God and others. We are to work whether we feel like it or not.

Life is not based on feeling, but rather on scientific fact: what we don't use, atrophies and dies. What remains is a shrunk-en mass of humanity, scratching on the minds of others, looking for a handout. That was not the intention of the Great Mind who, in love, visited upon us our gifts, our strengths, our hopes, our challenges.

An exhaustless supply of personal fulfillment and true service to a suffering world is at the fingertips and mental synapses of all who grasp the plan. It's the blueprint, it's the gospel. The laws of nature are the laws of God. Christ first eked out a living as a humble carpenter, and after His anointing as "the suffering Lamb of God," (an itinerant, unappreciated preacher), the remainder of His days were spent in "steadfastly setting His face like a flint to go to Jerusalem," where the cross, His final work, awaited Him.

Let's follow His example, $7.50 an hour, or less.

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