John Murray Spear, Universalist and Abolitionist

This sermon was preached by Rev. Dan Harper at First Unitarian Church in New Bedford. As usual, the sermon below is a reading text. The actual sermon as preached contained ad libs, interjections, and other improvisation. Sermon copyright (c) 2007 Daniel Harper.

Readings

The first reading is rather long, and is from a sermon preached in 1774 by Elhanan Winchester, one of the earliest Universalist preachers in this country — he was preaching Universalism before John Murray arrived from England.

“There is one abomination… that prevails in this country, that calls aloud not only for sighing and crying, but for a speedy reformation and turning therefrom, if we desire to prevent destruction from coming upon us; I mean, the SLAVE TRADE….

“The very principle upon which it is founded, from which it springs, and by which it is carried on, is one of the most base and ignoble that ever disgraced the human species:

“WHICH is, Avarice. This mean and unworthy passion certainly had has a principal hand in this disgraceful traffic; no one can pretend that benevolence ever had, or ever can have, a hand in such a most infamous commerce. Avarice tends to harden the heart, to render the mind callous to the feelings of humanity, indisposes the soul to every virtue, and renders it prey to every vice. Ought we not to be ashamed of such a commerce, that has it rise from no better principle than mere selfishness or covetousness?…

“HAVING considered the principle from whence it originated, and to which its existence is owing, I pass to mention the horrible manner in which it is carried on. And here almost every vice that blackens and degrades human nature is employed; such as, deceiving, perfidy, decoying, stealing, lying, fomenting feuds and discords among the nations of Africa, robbery, plunder, burning, murder, cruelty of all kinds, and the most savage and unexampled barbarism.

“BLUSH… to think that ye are the supporters of a commerce that employs these, and many other vices to carry it on! Could you but think seriously of the disgraceful and cruel manner in which slaves are obtained, methinks you could not attempt to justify the horrid practice. Numbers are stolen while going out on their lawful business, are never suffered to return home to take leave of their friends; but are gagged and bound, then carried on board the vessels which wait for them, never more to see their native land again, but to drag out a miserable existence in chains, hunger, thirst, cold, nakedness, hard labour, and perpetual slavery.

“THINK, O ye tender mothers, how you would feel, if, when ye should send your little boys or girls to fetch a pitcher, or calabash of water from the spring, you should never see them return again! if some barbarous kidnapper should watch the opportunity, and seize upon your darlings, as the eagle upon its prey! should gag your sweet prattling babes, and force them away! how would your souls refuse to be comforted! such is the pain that many mothers feel in Africa, and God can cause it to come home to yourselves, who contribute to such an abomination as this.”

[From Universalism in America: A Documentary History of a Liberal Faith, edited by Ernest Cassara. Capitalized words found in this edition.]

***

The second reading is quite short, and it comes from an address which John Murray Spear gave to the Universalist Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840. After summarizing Elhanan Winchester’s anti-slavery sermon, Spear said, “[Universalists should] oppose all monopolies, despise all partiality, break down all unnatural distinctions, elevate the despised classes, and introduce a system of perfect equality.”

[Quoted in Russell Miller, The Larger Hope: The First Century of the Universalist Church in America, 1770-1870, p. 594.]

Sermon

This is the first in a series of occasional sermons about the history of our congregation. We are the direct institutional descendants of three congregations:– First Congregational Society (Unitarian) of New Bedford; First Universalist Church of New Bedford; and North Unitarian Church (Unitarian). 2008 will mark the three hundredth anniversary of the oldest of our three antecedent churches, First Congregational Society, later First Unitarian; in honor of that anniversary, this fall I plan to tell you about several unsung heroes and heroines from all three of our antecedent churches.

And I decided to start off with the most remarkable minister who ever was called to serve in one of those three churches. John Murray Spear was the first minister of First Universalist Church, when that congregation was formally incorporated in 1835. John Murray Spear was a remarkable man in many ways, both good and at times not-so-good. On the not-so-good side, later in his life he got so far into eccentric and far-out beliefs that he managed to alienate most of his old friends. But on the good side, he was a staunch Garrisonian abolitionist who advocated an immediate end to slavery as early as the 1830’s, when that was not a popular stance; he attracted African American members to First Universalist Church in a day when integrated churches were almost unimaginable, in a day when the Unitarian church in New Bedford kept a segregated pew for African Americans; and history indicates that he befriended and encouraged Frederick Douglass not long after Douglass escaped slavery and came to New Bedford, before Douglass become famous for his oratory.

But let’s begin at the beginning, and our beginning is to understand a little bit about Universalism. As you probably know, or could figure out, Universalism originally was the belief that all souls get to go to heaven; it was the belief that a benevolent God would be too good to allow the existence of hell.

Once the early Universalists in North America reached that conclusion, they quickly went a step further. They pronounced themselves egalitarians, that is, they asserted their belief in the essential equality of all humankind. This radical egalitarianism has stuck in Universalism, and in Universalists, down to the present day. Those of us who call ourselves Universalists today may or may not believe in God, but we most certainly believe in the infinite value of every human being.

It comes as no surprise, then, that early Universalists became active in cause of liberty during the American Revolution. Caleb Rich, one of the earliest Universalist preachers, fought in the Battle of Bunker Hill. Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, became a prominent Universalist. In 1791, Benjamin Rush wrote, “A belief in God’s universal love to all his creatures… leads to truths upon all subjects, but especially upon the subject of government. It establishes the equality of mankind.” Historian Ann Lee Bressler tells us that Benjamin Rush’s Universalism was “a rational and ultimately cheerful faith well-suited to a free and democratic society.” [Bressler, p. 19] What was true of Benjamin Rush was no less true of other early Universalists.

And those early Universalists were not afraid to apply their egalitarian principles to difficult subjects like slavery. As we heard in the first reading this morning, the Universalist preacher Elhanan Winchester spoke out against slavery in a strongly worded sermon as early as 1774. Along with John Murray, Winchester was one of the two towering figures of 18th C. Universalism; thus his sermon against slavery had a large influence. The sermon was widely distributed, influenced many of his contemporaries, and wound up influencing later generations as well.

Between the late 1700’s and the 1830’s, however, Universalism lost some of its early egalitarianism. By the mid-1830’s, a fair number of Universalists actively supported slavery. Not surprisingly, many of them lived in the Southern states, but there were plenty of northern Universalists who distanced themselves from applying egalitarian principles to enslaved Africans and African Americans. Even among the Universalists who did oppose slavery, many refused to take the hard-line stance of the abolitionists, saying that they didn’t want to anger the southern Universalists, didn’t want to promote divisiveness in the country or in the denomination. Maybe we can better understand this attitude if we remember that through much of late 18th C. and even into the 19th C., Universalists were reviled by the orthodox Christians; to proclaim yourself a Universalist was to risk being ostracized by friends, community, even your own family; to preach Universalism meant risking bodily harm, for there were orthodox Christians who physically assaulted Universalists to prevent the Universalist doctrine of love from being preached. I don’t mean to excuse them, but by the 1830’s, Universalists had begun to achieve a measure of respectability, and so perhaps some Universalists of that time preferred to avoid controversial topics like abolitionism.

Some Universalists may have preferred to avoid controversy, but not John Murray Spear. John Murray Spear was named after the great Universalist preacher John Murray. In fact, as a baby John Murray Spear was dedicated by no less a person than the great John Murray (remember that because of his Universalist beliefs, John Murray did not baptize children to cleanse them of original sin, instead he dedicated them to the highest purposes in life). The great John Murray was willing to take great risks to proclaim his Universalist faith; and perhaps some of that willingness rubbed off on the little baby John Murray Spear, because when that little baby grew up, he turned into a man who was willing to proclaim abolition of slavery at great risk to himself.

(Since this is the first day of Sunday school, I might add here that those of you who are raising your children in this church should be aware that even today Unitarian Universalist kids wind up being staunch egalitarians, who do things like pass up high-paying jobs in favor of work that pays far less but creates justice for all, and spreads good in the world. Consider yourself duly warned. But I digress….)

When John Murray Spear came to New Bedford in 1835, he discovered that New Bedford was notable for its racial tolerance. I will not say claim that it was a fully tolerant city; there was distinct legal and personal discrimination by white folks against people of color; but for its time, New Bedford was a remarkably tolerant place. People of color could earn a decent living in the whaling industry. People of color were accorded a higher level of freedom and respect by white people than in most other places in the United States. And fugitive slaves discovered that the city was a safe harbor for them, where they could blend in to a racially mixed populace, where they could find friendly help, and where they could find secure work.

Spear was already an abolitionist when he came to New Bedford. But he went further than just being an abolitionist; he got to know prominent members of the African American community in New Bedford. For example, Spear got to know Nathan Johnson. Nathan Johnson was a prominent African American citizen of New Bedford who represented the city for a number of years at the annual convention for free people of color; and his house was a stop on the Underground Railroad. Indeed, Nathan Johnson is best known for his role in the Underground Railroad, because in 1838 he took in an escaped slave named Frederick Johnson, and it was Nathan Johnson who helped the now free man to decide to change his name to Frederick Douglass.

The historian John Buescher recently published a biography of John Murray Spear and his brother Charles, and Buescher tells us this about John Murray Spear’s time in New Bedford: “One of Spear’s church members in New Bedford was Nathan Johnson, the gentleman with whom Frederick Douglass lived when he settled in the city after his escape from slavery. In his church one day, Spear found Douglass debating with members of his congregation. They were arguing for universal salvation, and Douglass was arguing for the existence of eternal punishment. Spear was much impressed with Douglass’s abilities and encouraged him to become a public speaker.” [Buescher, p. 171]

This short little anecdote tells us three very important things about this history of our own First Universalist Church. First, we have an important connection to Frederick Douglass, because John Murray Spear was one of those who very early on encouraged Douglass to become a public speaker. Second, Douglass actually came to our First Universalist Church, and although he was misguided enough to insist on the existence of eternal punishment, it is of some interest that he came at all. Third — and this is the most interesting bit of information — Nathan Johnson was at that time a member of First Universalist Church. I’m quite impressed that our own First Universalist Church welcomed African American members that early; to the best of my knowledge, that didn’t happen in First Unitarian until much later.

All this tells us that those early New Bedford Universalists were people of whom we can be proud. They had a religious belief in egalitarianism, and they lived out that belief. Indeed, history tells us that they sometimes became frustrated with other Universalists. By autumn, 1841, the New Bedford church was one of only two Universalist churches in Massachusetts which had adopted official resolutions supporting the abolition of slavery. The New Bedford Universalists publicly expressed their frustration when the local association of Universalists refused to even consider the matter of abolition. And when the Universalist Anti-Slavery Convention, of which they were founding members, proceeded more slowly than they liked, they shrewdly invited Frederick Douglass to accompany them to a meeting of the convention in the fall of 1841. When the convention wavered at the thought of voting for a resolution aimed at the Southern Universalist congregations which supported slavery, Douglass spoke up, and the power of his oratory so convinced the delegates that the resolution passed unanimously.

We can only imagine what it must have been like to be a part of that congregation. Universalists in those days were still fairly pugnacious, still willing to speak out loudly and publicly against the doctrine of eternal punishment; and Universalists in New Bedford made no bones about wanting to abolish slavery. And even though First Universalist had a white minister and a majority of white church members, it appears certain the congregation welcomed both black and white people into their church. I think I would have liked to have been a part of that congregation; they sound like my kind of people.

Unfortunately, John Murray Spear was forced to leave New Bedford in 1841 as a direct result of his abolitionist activities. Sometime in the summer of 1841, a southern slave-holder traveled to New Bedford accompanied by an 18 year old slave named Lucy Faggins. Under an 1836 law, Lucy Faggins technically became free the moment she stepped onto Massachusetts soil. So Rev. Thomas James, minister of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, and some other members of the New Bedford Anti-Slavery Society went and attempted to tell her that she was free. Then James and John Murray Spear took out a writ of habeus corpus, with the claim that Lucy Faggins was being unlawfully restrained by her master. The case ended well for Faggins, who achieved her freedom; but it ended badly for John Murray Spear. Susan Taber, who lived in New Bedford at that time, wrote about how once Lucy Faggins had been freed, the pro-slavery faction in New Bedford became determined to ruin John Murray Spear — they threatened Spear with arrest and prosecution, and made his life so difficult that he had to resign his pulpit here and move to the Universalist church in Weymouth. So ended a glorious ministry for First Universalist Church in New Bedford.

After he left New Bedford, Spear continued to work hard for the abolition of slavery. By 1844, Spear was sharing the lecture stage with Frederick Douglass in the “One Hundred Conventions” campaign of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. Spear also went on to work with his brother Charles for prison reform. His life embodied the Universalist principle of true egalitarianism.

And so I will end this sermon about John Murray Spear with a quizzical observation: here is a minister from one of our antecedent congregations, a minister who embodied our highest values, and yet his name appears nowhere in this building. We have on our walls here the names of many lesser ministers, and even the names of one or two forgettable ministers. But I would suggest that the story of John Murray Spear as I have told it this morning offers us at least two splendid opportunities as we approach the celebration of the 300th anniversary of the founding of First Unitarian. We could think about how we might celebrate John Murray Spear and the other ministers of First Universalist Church. And we could think about how we might celebrate the fact that Nathan Johnson was an early African American member of First Universalist. I don’t quite know how we will make use of these opportunities. Will we try to get the names of First Universalist’s ministers on the walls of this sanctuary? Will we name one of our rooms after Nathan Johnson? I don’t know how to answer that, but I do know that this congregation is able to come up with amazingly creative ways to take advantage of opportunities like these.

Water ingathering ceremony

The words below were used by Rev. Dan Harper to introduce the annual water ingathering ceremony at First Unitarian Church in New Bedford. As usual, what is below is a reading text. Text copyright (c) 2007 Daniel Harper.

Introduction to water ingathering

Water links all persons together in the cycle of life. Let me explain how that is literally true. A human being contains on the order of 10 to the 27th molecules of water — 10 to the 27th is a huge number, a one with 27 zeros after it. On an average day, we each probably consume about 10 to the 25th water molecules (that is, if I did my math right), and excrete the same amount. The water that comes out of us continues on in the water cycle, draining into the ocean, evaporating, forming clouds, and raining down again — so you are linked to the ocean and the sky, and to all living things that partake in the water cycle. You can also consider this historically. Since water molecules are pretty much indestructible, and since such a huge number of water molecules passes through us each day, there’s a decent chance that some of the water molecules currently in your body were formerly in the body of Socrates, Gotama Buddha, Jesus of Nazareth, and/or Hildegard of Bingen. So it is scientifically true that water links all beings.

It is also poetically true to say that water links us all together. Standing on the edge of the Rio Grande River, the poet Jimmy Santiago Braca writes:

I’ve come here after drinking all night,
come here after betraying myself and others I’ve loved
come here and offered all the shame and guilt to this river,
to take it down river, pouring it out into the Gulf of Mexico
there for the whales to spout it up in the air…
to cleanse it, joining me
    in their wholeness, their completeness.
I breathe part of its being in me….

When we gather here to begin a new church year together, we participate in a ritual gathering of the waters. If you get the church newsletter, you were invited to bring a small amount of water that somehow represents your summer: some of the water you used to water your garden, perhaps; or water from one of the city or town beaches that you visited this summer; or water from a place you visited; or water from a stream or river nearby that is important to you. If you didn’t get the church newsletter, or if you forgot, don’t worry: we have cups of water here for you to use; when your turn comes, you can pour one of these little cups of water into the communal bowl and tell us what it represents from your summer.

Here is how we will do this: Please line up here, to my right and your left. When your turn comes, step up onto the platform. Speak clearly into the microphone, say your name, and tell us in one or two sentences what your water represents. Please be aware that there are lots of people who will want to speak. Tell us just enough to make us curious, so that people will want to approach you during social hour and ask you about your summer.

I’ll start us off. My name is Dan Harper. This I went to visit some cousins I hadn’t seen in twenty years, and this water is from their house….

Labor of Love

This sermon was preached by Rev. Dan Harper at First Unitarian Church in New Bedford. As usual, the sermon below is a reading text. The actual sermon as preached contained ad libs, interjections, and other improvisation. Sermon copyright (c) 2007 Daniel Harper.

Responsive reading

“A Magnificent and Generous Economy”

Ellen Emerson, daughter of Lidian and Ralph Waldo Emerson, wrote this about her mother: “One of Mother’s talents was making something out of nothing and there was room to afford it great play.

“Every rag of remains of her days of fine dressing was used in one way or another with great ingenuity till there was nothing left of it. Every garment could be made to serve a second term.

“Whenever Mother saw an opportunity she spread out the wearing-out things and the stores in the bundle-trunk and devised intricate plans, having someone at hand to baste as fast as she could arrange the pieces.

“Almira Flint, the daughter of one of the farmers, came to sew for us and told me afterwards that Mother taught her how to do many things by telling her how, and simply expecting her to do it; she made her a carpenteress, an upholsteress, a paper-hanger, a dress-maker.

“Almira had naturally a true eye and a skilful hand, a spirit also that hated to give up. She wouldn’t say I can’t, so she and Mother were always triumphant together over many successes. Every economy and skill that she learned of Mother she used at home.

“Economy was natural to Mother. She knew she was practicing a vigilant, active and inventive economy in all departments of her housekeeping.

“To her economy was a large science with many intricate and minute ramifications. Her economy did not lie in going without.

“Instead she wished everything to serve all the purpose it could. She was, as naturally, magnificent and generous.”

From The Life of Lidian Jackson Emerson, by Ellen Tucker Emerson. Adapted by Dan Harper.

Readings

The first reading is from The Case of the Perjured Parrot by Erle Stanley Gardner (1939).

Perry Mason regarded the pasteboard jacket, labeled “IMPORTANT UNANSWERED CORRESPONDENCE,” with uncordial eyes.

Della Street, his secretary, looking crisply efficient, said with her best Monday-morning air, “I’ve gone over it carefully, Chief. The letters on top are the ones you simply have to answer. I’ve cleaned out a whole bunch of the correspondence from the bottom.”

“From the bottom?” Mason asked. “How did you do that?”

“Well,” she confessed, “it’s stuff that’s been in there too long.”

Mason tilted back in his swivel chair, crossed his long legs, assumed his best lawyer manner and said, in mock cross-examination, “Now, let’s get this straight, Miss Street. Those were letters which had originally been put in the ‘IMPORTANT UNANSWERED’ file?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve gone over that file from time to time, carefully?”

“Yes.”

“And eliminated everything which didn’t require my personal attention?”

“Yes.”

“And this Monday, September twelfth, you take out a large number of letters from the bottom of the file?”

“That’s right,” she admitted, her eyes twinkling.

“And did you answer those yourself?”

She shook her head, smiling.

“What did you do with them?” Mason asked.

“Transferred them to another file.”

“What file?”

“The ‘LAPSED’ file.”

Mason chuckled delightedly. “Now there’s an idea, Della. We simply hold things in the ‘IMPORTANT UNANSWERED’ file until a lapse of time robs them of their importance, and then we transfer them to the ‘LAPSED’ file. It eliminates correspondence, saves worry, and gets me away from office routine, which I detest….

***

The second reading is by W. E. B. DuBois, taken from his essay, “To His Newborn Great-Grandson.”

The return from your work must be the satisfaction which that work brings you, and the world’s need of that work. With this satisfaction, and this need, life is heaven or as near heaven as you can get. Without this — with work which you despise, which bores you, with work which the world does not need — this life is hell.

Sermon

That last reading, the passage from W. E. B. DuBois, has been sticking in my head since I ran across it about six months ago. DuBois says, “The return from your work must be the satisfaction which that work brings you, and the world’s need of that work.” When I first read it, I liked this idea. Your work, whatever it might be, returns to us two things: whatever satisfaction each of us gets out of whatever work we do, and the world’s need of that work. As near as I can tell, this is a true statement.

But the more I thought about this, the less I liked it. DuBois may have been speaking the truth, but I’m not sure I like the truth he was speaking. I say this because a good bit of the work I have done in my life has been pointless and not particularly necessary. By DuBois’s standards, that would mean that I have lived a goodly part of my life in a kind of hell. I say this also because I know lots of people who have fairly meaningless jobs that provide little satisfaction. This would seem to imply that a fair percentage of the population is living in a kind of hell.

To better explain what I mean, let me tell you a little bit about one particular job I had — not that I think my life is particularly interesting, but rather I think this particular job is fairly representative of a lot of jobs out there. Twenty years ago, I was working as a salesman in a family-owned lumber yard, with about 80 employees. Probably ninety percent of our sales was to building contractors, with the rest to individual homeowners. I thought of it as a pretty decent place to work. The salespeople were treated with a certain amount of respect, at least as long as we kept our sales figures up. There wasn’t much room for advancement, but you could make a career there, as witnessed by a couple of older salesmen who had worked there for decades. We were required to work fifty hours a week, and sometimes you’d find yourself working sixty hours in a week, but when you punched the time clock at the end of the day, you could completely forget about the job. And the compensation was excellent — I made a heck of lot more money selling building materials than I make as a minister, with much better benefits besides.

So I had a decent job. However, considered in light of DuBois’s words, my job was pretty pitiful. The world has no particular need of lumber salespeople. Basically, my job was to sell as much building materials as possible, with as high a profit margin as possible. It was best for me when I could sell to contractors building big luxury homes — best for me, but not so good for the world. And I got no great satisfaction out of the job. Don’t get me wrong, I thought then and I still think now that it was a decent job, and I’m still mildly proud of the fact that my last two years there I was top gross and top net among the inside sales staff. But I got my satisfaction elsewhere in my life. Therefore, considered in light of DuBois’s words, the work I did at my job was pretty pitiful.

Let us consider another kind of work. In the responsive reading this morning, we heard a little bit about the work that Lidian Jackson Emerson did in her life time; this comes from a biography that Lidian’s daughter, Ellen, wrote of her. After she married Ralph Waldo Emerson and became a housewife, Lidian could be quite sure that the world needed her work. In the New England of her era, children were cared for by women, the food was cooked by women, and the houses were managed by women; and while it might not be personally satisfying to all people, if we’re going to survive as a species, the children must be cared for, the food cooked, and households must be managed.

This is not to say that the work itself necessarily satisfied her. Lidian had a small but adequate income of her own from an inheritance. Before her marriage to Ralph Waldo Emerson, Lidian Jackson had devoted her life to charitable works, to reading and study, and to her Unitarian faith; she was thirty-three when she finally married, and you get the sense from Ellen’s biography that becoming a housewife — the endless details of caring for children, cleaning, cooking, and so on — consumed her time but did not entirely satisfy her. Yet she made of the work what she could. As we heard in the responsive reading, she took her work seriously and performed it well. She may not have taken her satisfaction from the inherent joys of the work, but rather from the knowledge that it was necessary work and that she did it well.

You can understand that my work as a salesman differed from Lidian Jackson Emerson’s work as a housewife and mother. The human species will not survive without someone like Lidian Jackson Emerson to raise the children, prepare the food, and take care of the household. As for my old job, the world would be no worse off if there were no lumber salespeople. After I quit my job as a salesman, I went to work for a carpenter, and I found myself in a job where the work I was doing was necessary: we would go repair the roof of someone’s house, for example, and at the end of a day’s work I would know that I had accomplished something that really was worth doing.

So much of the work we do these days seems relatively meaningless; so many of the jobs we fill seem pointless. We live in the information economy now, and a lot of our country’s wealth is generated from moving information around, which may be satisfying but which is not as elementally necessary as raising a child. Then there are those of us who work in big bureaucracies, or in big factories, where you can feel as if you’re just a replaceable cog on an insignificant wheel, going round and round in circles. Jobs are increasingly anonymous, workers are increasingly replaceable, and sometimes the work we do seemingly gets farther and farther away from the real world.

Our work is increasingly divorced from meaning, and I am convinced that has become one of the great spiritual crises of our time. We are afraid that if we cross-examined ourselves, as Perry Mason cross-examined Della Street in the first reading this morning, that we would discover that much of the work with which we occupy ourselves could have been left undone, and transferred into a file marked “LAPSED,” and ignored; and no one would notice the difference.

That is why I don’t much like DuBois’s words — because they ring true. He said: “The return from your work must be the satisfaction which that work brings you, and the world’s need of that work. With this satisfaction, and this need, life is heaven or as near heaven as you can get. Without this — with work which you despise, which bores you, with work which the world does not need — this life is hell.” I am lucky that I have never had work that I absolutely despise, nor have I had work that was entirely unnecessary; and the most boring work that I had at least compensated me well. But much of the work I have done over the years has been meaningless and not particularly necessary. Having talked with some of you about your work, I know that some of you feel similarly. Those of us who have had these experiences, according to DuBois, have lived — or are living — in a kind of hell.

In order for work to be satisfying, it must fill some great need in the world, and it must bring inner satisfaction to the worker herself or himself. One of the great spiritual questions is this: “What is my place in the world?” Good work helps us answer this question, because if we know what we are giving to the world that the world needs, then we know a part of how we stand in relation to the world; from this knowledge can come an inner spiritual satisfaction. Another great spiritual question is: “What ought I to do with my life?” Good work helps us to answer this question, because if we know we are filling some need in the world, we know a part of what we ought to do with life; from this knowledge can come an outward-directed spiritual satisfaction.

So what do we do to heed DuBois’s warning against “work which you despise, which bores you, work which the world does not need”? I don’t have any final answer to this question, but I do have some possible answers.

First, let’s remember that we’re not talking about financial satisfaction; we’re talking aobut spiritual satisfaction. Work that brings you lots of money can still be work that leaves you in some kind of personal hell. We all need enough money to pay the rent, put food on the table, buy some clothing, pay the utilities, and support charity. Aside from that, money need not enter into this discussion. Second, let’s remember that we’re not necessarily talking about a paid job at all. Lidian Jackson Emerson didn’t get paid for her work as a housewife and mother; but she had work nonetheless, work which she was able to make magnificent and generous. Having made those two clarifying points, what can we do to heed DuBois’s warning against work which we despise, which bores us, work which the world does not need?

One possible answer is the Henry David Thoreau answer. At one point in his life, Henry David Thoreau suggested doing as little work as possible — he recommended working as a day-laborer when you needed cash, but aside from that he advocated living off the land by living as simply as possible and growing as much of your own food as possible. Instead of working a regular job as a farmer or tradesman or schoolteacher, Thoreau chose to tune in to the transcendent reality of Nature, turn on to the wisdom of the world’s religions found in the Bhagavad Gita, the Bible, and the Confucian Analects, and basically he chose to drop out of the comfortable bourgeois life he was expected to lead. This is a very real possibility even today. I actually did this for a year or two — lived cheaply, worked three days a week, and spent my time reading and studying. However, in order to do this, I had no car or dental care, and it was only possible because I had no children to raise. It’s also important to remember that when Thoreau lived in accordance with his suggestions, he was very active: he finished writing a book

What can we do to heed DuBois’s warning against work which we despise, which bores us, work which the world does not need? Here’s another possible answer. If you currently have a soul-deadening job with no redeeming social value, one possibility is to quit your job, and hope you can find another job that is more satisfying. This is the sort of thing that books like “Do What You Love and the Money Will Follow” tell you to do — and to give credit to that particular book, the author tells you that you better have a day job to pay the bills while you find that spiritually satisfying job, and she also suggests that you live as simply as possible. It’s also important to remember that if you come from a relatively well-to-do background, this possibility is more likely to work, because you are more likely to receive financial and material support from your family while you’re finding your new and satisfying job, and your network of family and friends will be more likely to include good contacts for finding a job.

Another possible answer is found in Frederick Douglass’s first paid work. In his 1881 essay, “My Escape from Slavery, Douglass writes about escaping from slavery to New Bedford, and then finding work:

“The fifth day after my arrival [her wrote], I put on the clothes of a common laborer, and went upon the wharves in search of work. On my way down Union street I saw a large pile of coal in front of the house of Rev. Ephraim Peabody, the Unitarian minister. I went to the kitchen door and asked the privilege of bringing in and putting away this coal. “What will you charge?” said the lady. “I will leave that to you, madam.” “You may put it away,” she said. I was not long in accomplishing the job, when the dear lady put into my hand TWO SILVER HALF-DOLLARS. To understand the emotion which swelled my heart as I clasped this money, realizing that I had no master who could take it from me,—THAT IT WAS MINE—THAT MY HANDS WERE MY OWN, and could earn more of the precious coin,—one must have been in some sense himself a slave. My next job was stowing a sloop at Uncle Gid. Howland’s wharf with a cargo of oil for New York. I was not only a freeman, but a free working-man, and no “master” stood ready at the end of the week to seize my hard earnings.”

So wrote Frederick Douglass, and from him we learn what we already know: If you are able to work, and able to keep the money you earn for yourself and your family, there is spiritual satisfaction in not being in bondage. There is a larger principle at work here: Work that leads to liberation and freedom, however circuitously, can be spiritually satisfying work.

And that leads us to another possible answer to our question, which is related to this last answer. It is possible to hold down a pointless job, or to have no job at all, and to find your spiritual satisfaction elsewhere. This applies as well to those people who are retired, or students who are not yet working. in the work of repairing the world. I have done so — I have had a relatively meaningless job, but when I punched out at the end of the day or the end of the week, I then did good work by volunteering in my church and in the wider community. This is what Frederick Douglass did. I do not imagine that shoveling coal for Ephraim Peabody provided enough spiritual nourishment for a man whose soul was as broad and deep as Frederick Douglass’s was; but on his own time, he began to speak out against slavery, and so he wound up changing the world for the better.

I leave you with this one final thought: Those words from DuBois come from an essay he addressed to his grandson. And I believe this is the key to everything we have considered this morning: somehow we have to pass on to our children, and other youth in our community, what it means to have good work; somehow we have to let them know that there is more than one way to find good work in this world. May that be the work of all of us here: to let young people know what it means to have good work.