Article October 1, 2013

Work

Mabel S. Thomson

Originally published in the March 13, 1919 issue of The Christian Science Monitor

The subject of work and working hours is occupying so large a place now in the world’s regard that every one is obliged, willy-nilly, to pay some attention to the matter. Hitherto it has been part of the accepted state of things that there should be a working class and a leisured class, and the majority have been content to leave it at that, but such a condition of nonchalance is no longer possible, and for many reasons a large number of persons not without surprise find themselves not only having to think about it, but actually having to do work that had formerly been done for them. What is still more of a surprise to many is, that once having learned the joy of work, they dread returning to their pre-war state of idleness or leisure.

Now, in the first place, what is this thing called work, and why is there such a tremendous upheaval about it to-day? Work is the energy of production, and the reason of the trouble about it to-day, is that the carnal mind, or mortal mind, as Mrs. Eddy calls it, has misunderstood and misinterpreted the nature of work, just as it has misinterpreted everything else in human experience. Instead of work being considered the privilege of every human being, the whole question has been debased onto the plane of drudgery, and we have the melancholy pictures of slaves, and bondmen, and misery, and depression, all down the ages until this hour. Now, however, through the action of the spiritual idea, or Christ, everything existing in consciousness is being forced into the light for the purpose of readjustment, and that the readjustment of this particular thing, work, is part of the trouble foretold by Jesus as a necessary purging before the second coming of the Son of man, there can be no doubt, when we see, as we are forced to, that it touches the very foundations of human society.

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