Prying Up a Long Nail, Photo by Tomwsulcer (CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication)
There is a plaintive line from the old Simon and Garfunkel song, El Condor Pasa (If I Could), that speaks about the superiority of hammers to nails. Sometimes we feel that way, Christians and non-Christians alike. So tired of the pounding, we’re tempted to change places with the hammer. So beleaguered that any road seems better than the one we’re on. If only we could leave our burdens behind.
It is worth remembering that nails hold things together. Tables, chairs. Even skyscrapers. Maybe you are the “nail” holding a family or organization together. Maybe you are the one “nail” on whom someone’s life hangs.
A certain Carpenter we all know used nails. In fact, He continues to use them. He was hung on a cross by – and for – them.
“He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; He has taken it away, nailing it to the cross” (Col. 2:13-14).
Lord Jesus, the thought of Your pain grieves us beyond words. But You discharged our indebtedness on the cross. Help us to know that our own pain is not useless. We can bear that pain, if it is in Your name.
Use us to build up this city we call home, Lord. Use us to hold this nation together. Use us to make this world Yours.
Amen
READERS CAN FIND MY VIEWS ON ABUSE AND ABUSE-RELATED ISSUES AT ANNA WALDHERR A Voice Reclaimed, Surviving Child Abuse
https://avoicereclaimed.com
Vietnamese children engaged in rice cultivation, Author/Source Thomas Schoch (CC BY-SA 2.5 Generic)
“ ‘As long as the earth endures, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease’ ” (Genesis 8: 22).
Hundreds of thousands of children under the age of 18 work in agriculture in the US. Precise figures are difficult to come by. But the 2006 Child Agricultural Injury Survey put the number of those under the age of 20 employed in farm work at 307,000. The United Farm Workers Union would place it much higher.
Federal Regulation
The federal Fair Labor Standards Act governs US child labor. Children from the age of 12 on may legally work for any farm with parental consent. No survey could be located re: the number of children age 12 and under illegally engaging in farm work.
There are no legal limits on the hours children can work in agriculture when school is not in session. Farm workers are not, however, entitled to overtime, and they generally do not receive job benefits.
Child farm workers often make less than minimum wage, with pay reduced still further when employers under-report hours and force children to purchase the gloves, tools, and drinking water that employers are actually required by law to supply.
Child Injury and Mortality [1]
Sixteen children died at work in the US last year, twelve of those while employed on farms. If that statistic is not sufficiently shocking, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health estimates that 907 young people died on US farms between 1995 – 2002. That averages an astonishing 130 deaths per year.
Human Rights Watch over a decade ago reported on the grave health and educational risks children employed in agriculture face. Farm workers (children and adults) often work with or in vicinity of dangerous equipment. Again, the 2006 Childhood Agricultural Injury Survey estimated that 22,900 injuries occurred to young people working on farms.
Both adults and children regularly work in fields treated with chemicals, some carcinogenic. According to the EPA, children ages 3 – 15 may experience three times the cancer threat the same level of chemicals would pose for adults. Simply put, children are more vulnerable to harm. Read more…
Silk Thread, India, Photo by McKay Savage of London, UK, Source http://www.flickr.com/photos/mckaysavage/2576645773/ (CC BY 2. 0 Generic)
“ Like wild donkeys in the desert, the poor go about their labor of foraging food; the wasteland provides food for their children. They gather fodder in the fields and glean in the vineyards …” (Job 24: 5-6).
King Cotton
No one can say for certain when cotton was first utilized in textiles.
Fragments of cotton bolls and cotton cloth have been found in Mexico dating to about 5800 BC. Cotton clothed ancient Egypt, India, and China. When Columbus arrived in the Americas, cotton was already growing in the Bahamas.
By the mid-19th Century cotton formed the basis of the South’s economy. Fortunes were made in the lucrative cotton trade, as an outgrowth of slave labor.
Americans continue to wear and use cotton daily.
We are clothed in cotton, soothed and pampered by cotton, and take cotton for granted. Terrycloth robes, jeans and T-shirts, corduroy slacks and chambray work shirts, socks, underwear, cosmetics, swabs, and coffee filters are among the myriad products containing or derived from cotton. Luxury bath towels are graded by cotton thread count.
By the Labor of Their Hands
Until 1943, cotton was laboriously picked by hand. This meant long, backbreaking hours in the sun – first by African American slaves, then share croppers (black and white), then migrants and their children. A grown man was expected to pick about 90 lbs. per day.
Much has changed with the advent of heavy machinery, but migrant workers continue to play an important role in agriculture.
Children continue to work by their parents’ sides. For one thing, cotton has been genetically modified to incorporate the genetic coding for Bt toxin, a natural insecticide produced by the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). This has reduced the reliance on pesticides. As it turns out though, children are just the right height to pollinate Bt cotton seeds artificially. Read more…
Carpentry Tools, Photo by Wolfgang Sauber (CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic, 1.0 Generic, GDFL 1.2 or later)
Before the Lord took up His public ministry, He worked for years in anonymity, as a simple Carpenter.
Anyone who works in wood will tell you that the task is, in fact, far from simple. Woods vary in quality and strength. It takes knowledge and patience to produce something of lasting usefulness and beauty.
Jesus would have learned His trade from Joseph or another male relation. The God who fashioned this extraordinary universe of ours would have learned to sand, stain, hammer, and saw. His strong and gentle hands would have grown blistered and calloused, in the process.
Who the carpenter was that made Jesus’ cross, we do not know. The cross is unlikely to have been more than rough-hewn. It was intended for use by a criminal, after all. Read more…
Row Houses, Philadelphia, PA, Photo by Davidt8
“Then David said to the Philistine, ‘You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts…This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand…’ ” (1 Sam. 17:45-46).
Like many other older cities, Philadelphia has large areas of poverty, particularly in the north and west. Housing is at a premium in these areas. Row upon row of homes sag with age and disrepair, kindling awaiting the match.
Leaking roofs and broken windows are common. At times, raw sewage spills into occupied homes when pipes collapse, but the city has no funds to replace them, and the landlord declines to do so. Tenants behind on rent bear with unbearable circumstances. Read more…
“Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane”, Stained Glass Panel by Alfred Handel, St. John’s Anglican Church, New South Wales, Australia, Photo by Toby Hudson (CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported, GFDL 1.2 or later)
“And He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and prayed, saying, ‘Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done’ ” (Luke 22: 41-42).
Lord Jesus, You knew from the beginning of time what Your obedience to the Father would require, yet gave Yourself over freely to His will. You were without sin, yet chose to bear the sins of the world that the relationship between God and man might be restored.
We cannot comprehend love of such magnitude, Lord. Each of us has spent time in the garden…seeking alternatives that were not to be. Though our pain can never compare to Yours, Lord, we find comfort in the fact that our experiences mirror Your own.
May our obedience mirror Yours, as well.
Amen
READERS CAN FIND MY VIEWS ON ABUSE AND ABUSE-RELATED ISSUES AT ANNA WALDHERR A Voice Reclaimed, Surviving Child Abuse
https://avoicereclaimed.com
A lonely child, Author Rezowan, (CC BY-SA 4.0 International)
Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen – a great speaker and profound Christian writer, since passed on to his reward – said of paganism that it created idols out of man’s burning desire to see the gods face to face, to “force” them into this broken world of ours and hold them accountable.
As Christians, we know that man’s desire to see God in the flesh was at last fulfilled in the Person of Jesus Christ. We know that sin is the result of human action, but that the penalty for sin was paid through God’s action. The difference in viewpoint is crucial.
Jesus, Himself, explained that the righteous will ask at the Final Judgment:
“Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?” (Matt. 25: 37-39).
And He will reply, “…inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these…you did it to Me” (Matt. 25: 40).
This then is the crux: We glorify God by serving others, for God is already here.
That this is a broken world is no indication we have been abandoned to it. Rather, we see His image in the face of every child left home alone by a working single mother. We see Him in the face of an injured laborer, as well as that of an abused woman. We see Him through anguish and tears. We see Him despite fear, embarrassment or shame.
We need no idols. Our God is here, among us, in this fallen world. No stench of sin is great enough to keep Him away. He extends His hand of mercy, as no lesser god could.
May He use us as His instruments.
READERS CAN FIND MY VIEWS ON ABUSE AND ABUSE-RELATED ISSUES AT ANNA WALDHERR A Voice Reclaimed, Surviving Child Abuse
https://avoicereclaimed.com
First Chapter of a Handwritten Scroll of the Book of Esther with Jad (Pointer), Photo by Chefallen (CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported)
“ ‘For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise…from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?’ ” (Esther 4:14).
This year the Jewish holiday of Purim begins Wednesday evening March 7. For those of you who may not know, Purim celebrates the deliverance of the Jews from destruction in ancient Persia (now northwest Iran, and neighboring areas). That fact is being twisted into a lie on a grand scale. The parallels are all too clear.
According to the Bible, King Xerxes (Ahasuerus) permitted the Jews to defend themselves against the attacks authorized by an earlier mandate that they be wholly annihilated. The Bible records that this defense by the Jews resulted in the deaths of some 75,000 enemy combatants. It was through the intervention of Esther, Xerxes’ courageous Jewish queen, that he relented. The queen’s cousin, Mordecai, had prompted her to act with the words quoted above.
Archaeologic evidence from the era confirms much of the background to the Bible story, including the existence of King Xerxes of whom the Greek historian Herodotus writes. Longstanding tradition places the tomb of Esther and Mordecai in the city of Hamadan.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not pleased by this truth, so is doing his best to eradicate it. Read more…
“ ‘For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?’ ” (Mark 8:36).
Any number of disappointing articles have been written about the impact of the Great Recession on lawyers, especially those just beginning their careers. Most of these articles focus exclusively on the financial aspect of lawyering.
Putting aside for the moment that many other areas of the economy have been harder hit than the legal profession, it is understandable that lawyers fearing for their livelihoods would look for reassurance, particularly considering the debt many law students carry when they first graduate. Read more…
Bell Tower, Independence Hall, Philadelphia, PA, Photo by Mary Ann Reitano (CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported)
“ ‘…He has sent Me…to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound…’ ” (Is. 61: 1).
Philadelphia, this beloved city of ours, has a proud heritage. Not only was it the cradle of American liberty. Philadelphia was, also, an important locus on the Underground Railroad. Johnson family members and prominent abolitionist William Still were all based in the city. Between them, this Quaker family and free black man helped upwards of 800 slaves escape to freedom.
The Underground Railroad was, in fact, the first instance of widespread civil disobedience in the nation. Though estimates vary, the movement is thought to have supplied food, clothing, safe shelter, and transport to some 40,000 – 50,000 men, women, and children in pursuit of liberty.
The urban poor find no consolation in this history, if they are aware of it at all. Read more…
A Lawyer's Prayers 