Harvest Time And a Day's Work

So today Missy had a flat tire, we won't go into how it happened. Okay, a curb came out and jumped in front of her. Sorry sweetie, couldn't resist! HA!
Well being the good husband that I am I went to change the tire. It wasn't much, but I felt good afterward. I know that this feeling will soon leave when we get the bill for the new tire but for now I feel good. I did a job, did it well, and looked down to see my hands dirty.
In this world of academia and higher thought, it seems as though our once callused hands can grow soft. In the world of books I have noticed the extra pounds coming and have done little to fight them off. This is a sad state of affairs.
There was a time I wanted nothing more than to work hard and come home everyday tired and dirty. My jobs through out high school and college involved landscaping, greenhouse work, and general labor. They were sweaty and beautiful jobs. As someone once said I found out that my hands really did fit a shovel.
There is nothing like some manual labor to satisfy the soul. It is the beauty of using the body that the LORD has blessed us with. To knock the dust off our old bones and to stretch our muscles. To see a job from beginning to end is to share in the creative process that speaks to the image of God that lives in each of us. We were made for work and for creative endeavors.
When I think about this I think of my grandfather, his garden, and his workshop. If retirement is about taking it easy, no one told him. He worked hard well into his latter days. In fact the hardest part about that last year was watching the strongest man I have ever known being reduced to nothing by the cancer. To see the workshop neglected and the garden unplanted was just a testimony to how the fight was nearly over and he was losing. Those were hard days.
I think about him and his generation, the Depression, the wars, the work. These men knew about hard labor. Their mouths were fed by the sweat of their own brow.
There was no need for gym memberships, dieting, public health warnings about obesity. And these were people cooking with LARD! We have lost so much. How sad. For all of our technological advances we have merely come up with more ways to do less.
I once heard a comedian say that if you REALLY want to feel lazy then try explaining a drive-through window to a starving Ethiopian. "You mean not only do you not raise the livestock, kill it, clean it, butcher it, or cook it, but you don't even have to get out of your car for someone to bring it to you!"
So get out their and rake some leaves, dig a hole, build something, chop some wood, take a walk, DO SOMETHING! Let our generation remember the feeling of a good days work. Let us remember that life is not what happens on Grey's Anatomy but what we DO with our days.