Yesterday was labor day and it made me realize how much I enjoy my work.  According to business statistics, 80 percent of Americans hate their jobs.  Some 62 percent of jobs are in the service sector.  Perhaps that's some of the reason.

             Not that service is bad, but we humans are built for physical labor.  It keeps our physiques functional and it means you can see results.  Visceral interaction with measurable and physical things is fulfilling.

             A callous and splinter-based hand indicates intimate interaction with our ecological umbilical.  The basis of the word human is humus, like the living part of the soil.  Dust to dust . . . .    This morning at daybreak I was out moving the eggmobile and as I drove the tractor back to the shed, the sun scattered across the pastures in a panoply of rays diffusing into the rising ether mist from the succulent grasses and legumes.  It was breathtaking.

             To my left, young people in our steward and apprentice program moved chicken shelters, giving each bird a new salad bar for the day.  Although the whole scene was bucolic, it was also packed with meaning and intent.  Why do we do this?  To feed people wholesome food.

             What is the ancillary benefit?  Healing the land and creating bird, amphibian, pollinator, earthworm habitat.  These are willing workers, each inhabiting and involving their own labor in their own distinctive ministry.  My labor is all about making sure that all these unpaid friends achieve their niche of progress on the landscape and within the greater cultural food ecosystem.

             When people ask me:  "What gets you up in the morning?" my answer is simple:  "Stepping out the back door into a womb yearning for my participatory help and caress."   Having grown up on this piece of land and watching fields that once yielded 50 bales of hay now yield 1,000, the soul satisfaction of knowing that my labor can have that kind of beneficial ecological reaction is worth far more than money.  I'm be glad to die a pauper knowing that the rocks covered with soil and gullies filled with trees.

             What a privilege to know that my labor each day increases the bees, the birds, the earthworms and gently yields a legacy of plenty for my grandchildren.  That's no small matter and no small task.  Noble, sacred work has never been as needed nor as important.

             What's the most valuable part of your labor?