Labor Day 2009

I can't tell you how glad I am to be ensconced in the American workforce this Labor Day.

My job with SCIway.net -- take a look if you haven't already -- is like working for the encyclopedia. Everyday I dip into random topics related to South Carolina history and/or culture. Everything from waterfalls in the Upstate, to historical churches in the Midlands, to keeping up with football results for Clemson and what they call "Carolina".

I write -- notices to advertisers, notes to anyone who contributes ideas, descriptions for the photo gallery, short newsletter articles AND I figure out how to translate nearly everything I do into computer code.

I get to ponder things like when to use an endash instead of an emdash, the proper use of semicolons, how to say something substantive in 140 characters or less, and how to load text with the words that help us in Google rankings without being too obvious or repetitious.

You have to wonder how the really crack English teachers are teaching writing these days.

For those of us who came of age in the 70s, there was The Prophet by Kahil Gibran. He had something to say about nearly everything, and about work he said:
". . . And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.

And what is it to work with love?

It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching. . .

Often have I heard you say, "He who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is nobler than he who ploughs the soil. . ."
But I say, the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass;
And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.

Work is love made visible. "

I know I am fortunate to have found work at all, but to have found work that is interesting and satisfying and offers me opportunities to learn everyday is what I will celebrate on this holiday.