work

There’s a bunch of Mennonites in Paraguay. This may be surprising for those who thought of mennos (if at all) vaguely in being in / from eastern Europe, Pennsylvania, or southern Ontario. You may recall me mentioning that while mennos were having a tough time through history, they did receive on occasion invitations to settle somewhere with a modicum of protection from the authorities. One early example (circa 1760s) is Catherine the Great inviting Mennonites to settle in Russia in exchange for religious freedom and exemption from military service. This was an interesting time in history, with Russia fearing the Mongol hordes in the east and battling the Ottoman Empire in the south - times were tough, agriculture was important, and prime agricultural land was in dicey territory, so mennos, with their reputation for hard work, were welcome to settle the land and act as buffer between opposing forces. Much later, with the rise of communism in the Soviet Union in the 30s and then World War II in the 40’s, they found themselves part of a mass exodus, with few places willing to take in the numbers of refugees pouring forth. Again, reputation preceded them and again, mennos were invited to farm undesirable agricultural land, this time in an arid and uninhabited part of the Paraguayan jungle so notoriously inhospitable it was called ‘the green hell’.

If you’ve been paying attention to dates, we’ve come a near 400 years of these people putting their heads down and eking out an existence in spite of a considerable and consistent struggle with the land; their neighbours; the rulers. Huh. Must be hard-working folk to have made it so far.

Add to that the Protestant Work Ethic (most often but not strictly tied to Calvinism and predestination, but that gets a bit messy) in which work is re-conceptualized as a duty, good for the soul and the community, and we have a people who place high value in hard work and frugality.

(Note: the Protestant Work Ethic is an interesting concept blending theology, sociology, economics and history and is sometimes credited with the rise of capitalism and defining the culture of the United States)

(Another note: odd that hard work and financial gain would be respected goals of a people devoted to eschewing worldly possessions, but built right in to the desire to work was the sense that the pursuit of wealth was not itself a sin, but the waste of money on frivolous luxuries.

Anywho, work became the means for Mennonites to secure a right to exist. Over and over they traded their labour for the tolerance of their neighbours. In such circumstances, throughout their history, hard physical work became necessary, became dignified, became quietly honourable. As a result, it remains an integral part of their character today – character in the quiet, old fashioned sense that a person’s worth lay in their inherent quality or role in their work/life circles, as opposed to the current rise of the popularity of personality, praising the individual as automatically special in their own right rather than as based on proven value in relation to their community. (For fun reading: character vs personality ethics)

How does this translate to now? Ie: how do I justify talking about the glory of hard work while I sit here with my umbrella drink on the beach? Because this value of hard work has little to do with what you ‘do’ for a living. Better yet if it has nothing to do with “what” you do at all, and is primarily concerned with how you do it:

Quietly, efficiently, well, and with pride, because it has to be done rather than because one wants to do it.

Which, to be fair, is not quite yet how I do anything – more so with maximum fuss and praise and gold stickers.
But I’m WORKing on it. (oof)