Hey, Cobblestone,
It all made sense once the man explained it to me. Before I
read Harry Caudill’s book, Night Comes to the Cumberlands, I thought
work was divided into two distinct categories: “Worth It” and “Not Worth It.”
And as far back as I could remember, “my people” – parents, aunts and uncles,
grandparents for generations – had always worked in that second, dismal
category. We traded our time for someone else’s money, but found ourselves
short of both. Not worth it – ugh. But Mr. Caudill’s insights were a big help.
In the 1700’s, there were basically two methods by which a
person got from Europe to the “new world,” America. In the old countries of
Europe, the first-born sons inherited the estate and typically stayed there,
carrying on as the generation before them had. Younger sons would inherit
wealth, and needed a place to invest it. These often came to the Colonies, and
most often landed in the Northeast, or New England, as it was coming to be
known.
Meanwhile, other Europeans were coming across the pond. With
no wealth to speak of, these paid for their passage by way of indentured
servitude, paying back their sponsors with years of labor. Mostly, they were
from families with no old money. Some were the overflow from debtors’ prison;
still others from plain old prison. For all, the status quo had not worked for
a very long time. All things must surely be better beyond the western horizon.
Their boats usually landed in southern Virginia and the Carolinas – the Tobacco
Coast – and they debarked to begin a period of prepaid labor.
My forbears came from that second bunch. Strong backs and
plenty of ambition. More adventurous, perhaps, than those who had stayed on
their continent of origin. But no capital to invest, other than themselves.
In the Northeast, the investors were enjoying a bountiful
return, and moved west across the Alleghenies to the rapidly developing
frontier territory of Ohio. At the same time, those who had come ashore on the
Tobacco Coast were finishing their contracts, and with essentially no chance of
acquiring land where they were, moved west across the Appalachians, passing
through the Cumberland Gap to homestead in Tennessee and Kentucky.
Along the northern route, a strong connection was maintained
with the East, including a commitment to establishing accessible education. On
the southern route, a strong emphasis was placed on resourcefulness – making
the most of what was naturally at hand. The two routes converged right here
where many of us at Cobblestone live now. Industry in our area, and Miami
University itself, were direct results of the convergence. (Did you know that,
in the year 1900, Hamilton, Ohio was the fifth-largest industrial producer in
the whole United States? It's a fact.) Both institutions needed money and labor
– capital and resourcefulness – to thrive. Hello, Butler County!
It would have been a match made in heaven, except for one
pivotal (and tragic) event. The Southerners caught on quickly to the
trading-life-for-money arrangement. There was a cultural memory of indentured
servitude – not a pleasant memory at all. The Northerners realized that the
very people who were providing them a handsome return on investment were
increasingly dissatisfied. There was – just maybe – a sweet spot in which the
two groups could have come together: Labor could have taken greater
responsibility for profitable outcomes; Capital could have shared further in
the profits. Instead, the two groups separated. Those with capital built their
New World estates apart from the smoke and noise and sweat that made the
estates possible. Those with great pools of resourcefulness retreated into
their enclaves of like-gifted people. Both groups blamed the other for the divide.
If there’s any truth in the old adage “You have to spend
money to make money” (and I believe there is), it’s truest for those who have a
large margin between what money it takes to survive and what is left to invest.
It doesn’t really work the other way around. Other than the occasional
recession and one Depression, the more money an investor spent, the greater the
return. Meanwhile, those who had little or no margin were left without a way to
participate. For investors, the gains were often meteoric; for laborers, the
gains were incremental. And on this foundation, dear Church, the
Worth-It/Not-Worth-It dividing wall was built.
Harry Caudill took a lot of criticism because of Night
Comes to the Cumberlands, mostly from other Appalachians. He pulled no
punches in describing how, time after time, Kentuckians of the Cumberland
Plateau found themselves on the muddy end of exploitation. Being told that the
people you’ve loved and admired all your life were, basically, rubes – that’s a
tough one. His son, in the Foreword to one of the more recent editions, even tells
of death threats his dad received. But to a very high degree, based on what
I’ve seen in the sixty years since the book was originally published, I believe
Cousin Harry was shooting us straight. He taught me where the division came
from.
What he didn’t teach me was what to do about it. True, his
book carried a resounding “Don’t let this happen again” message, and I’m all
for that. My family is from Kentucky too, and I groan when I see the
exploitation still going on. (My nephew in Jackson County, upon graduating
welding school, was offered $9.50 an hour to start – about a third of what he
could make north of the Mason-Dixon line.) But there’s a uniquely Christian
understanding – what should Christians do about the Woth-It/Not-Worth-It
wall – that was left out of publication.
Enough history – let’s get to the crucial point: “Hey,
Christian, you don’t work for The Man, you work for The King.”
Regardless of socioeconomic status or nature of employment,
all who have the mind of Christ (see 1Corinthians 2:16) and the indwelling Holy
Spirit (see 1Corinthians 12:13) are engaged in work that is Worth It. Do all of
us know that? Not even close. Let’s go to Scripture, and begin to be convinced:
Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not
for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance
as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ (Colossians 3:23-24).
See? What I told you is Bible-true: you work for The King.
The work you do, done in service to the King, brings his kingdom.
In the two letters I’ve written to you so far on the nature
of work, we’ve seen that 1) work is meant to be satisfying; Adam had a job before
he sinned, and the Garden of Eden flourished under his care, and 2) work is
not a curse; indeed, there was no curse pronounced, only the natural
consequences of being separated from God by sin. In this letter, the idea is to
understand where our work is headed.
Jesus knows exactly what he wants his kingdom to look like
when he completes it here on earth. In his first appearing, he dropped some
large clues, and intends that we would pick them up and implement them to the
best of our Holy Spirit-empowered ability. But life happens, right, and it
looks for all the world that the un-Jesus side has all the worldly advantages.
Close your eyes. Go ahead, close ‘em. Now say, “On earth as
it is in heaven…” Say it again. I don’t ask you to do stuff like this very
often, Church, but I’m asking now. Say it a third time: “On earth as it is in
heaven…”
This planet of ours constitutes a very precise volume.
Mankind has estimated, but only God knows how many cc’s that is. Earth weighs a
certain amount, and though man has made his best guess, God knows it down to
the fraction of a gram. But mankind can know – oops, to be more
specific, Christians can know – this unassailable fact: Every particle
of Jesus’ kingdom we call onto earth, displaces the same amount of un-Jesus
kingdom. It’s a gon-er. Outta here. We will have to wait for the Rightful King
to tip the scales undeniably and eternally, but the work we do right here and
right now loads them in his direction. Please take that idea into your next
shift.
And just for kicks, when you lay your head on your pillow
after long hours of work, receive this truth from the Bible book of Zephaniah:
The Lord your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing (3:17).
I can make the offer only on his promise.
Grace and Peace (even “on the clock”!),
John
