NewWorld

The Real Meaning of Work
Helping the unemployed can be an opportunity for an unexpected discovery: Work is participating in Someone Else’s work, as witnessed by the experience of a group of friends. “The person I’m trying to help and I are in the same boat”

by Samuele Rosa

A few friends of the Washington, DC, CL community have found themselves facing quite a challenge. Over a number of years, many here in the DC area have lost their jobs, certainly to a larger extent than in the past. In today’s job market, it’s not unusual to have to change one’s career more than once. This also may look good on a résumé. A new phenomenon, however, has come upon the job market after the roaring 90s. Job opportunities seem to have decreased, and this is a considerable challenge for a society built on optimism. The middle class seems to be particularly affected by this phenomenon. People talk about outsourcing and competition from abroad.

Looking for jobs
What’s happening is clear. So many among us have suddenly unexpectedly found themselves looking for jobs. The tragedy of losing a job compounds family difficulties, as in the case of friends with serious family responsibilities, mortgages, and school and university fees to be paid off, some of whom were not exactly novices, having a number of years of work experience behind them, and who suddenly had to look for jobs just like recent college graduates. It’s one thing to read about this crisis in the newspapers or to hear about it on the news, and another to find out that your dearest friend and his family are suddenly without a stable source of income.
Here is how things happened. About four years ago, some friends of the CL group in Washington, DC, had to face the problem of unemployment. The list of these friends is long. In order: Rick, Sue, Alfredo, Carmen, Elisabetta, Mark, and John suddenly all had to look for new jobs.  They were fired on the spot. This fact caused them to wonder: What to do? What does our experience point out, concretely, as a criterion?
Stefano Ratti, a bright young man, worked at that time s as a consultant for an important energy company. He was also facing the need to improve his work situation and to find the right balance in his life, taking into account his growing family. He too, then, had some unsolved issues. Together with other friends in the community–including Samuele, who had actually begun this work a year before–he decided to offer some of his (very little) spare time to help those in need. Stefano and his friends wanted to do this by following a plan, by trying to define a method with some concrete steps. Stefano was not happy with just doing something for his friends. His attempt to help, he said, must have a public face. It must be a place where all those who are in this situation can walk together with us.

Regular meetings
This idea has resulted in a regular meeting north of Rockville (in Maryland). Other friends have set up similar meetings in Washington, DC, and in northern Virginia. This core group of friends, also including a few who are not in the Movement, meet regularly to talk about the steps they have taken. They have established a name (WorkCenter), a website (www.WorkCenter.us), and articles of association (tax-exempt, public corporation status). Together they also study texts by Father Giussani about the meaning of charitable work and of work in general.

In the same boat
The strange thing about this is that, the more Stefano tries to help his friends (and his friends’ friends) find jobs, the deeper this question becomes. After all, what does it really mean to work? When facing difficult situations, Stefano and his friends re-discover something Father Giussani had talked about so much: even when doing a gesture with extreme care, and by seriously trying to find a solution for one’s friends, we are never really able to totally meet their needs. By establishing a relationship with them, by taking their needs seriously, it is as if one enters a mysterious perspective, beyond measures. The only word that can properly explain this relationship is sharing. “I found out,” he says, “that, deep down, the person I’m trying to help and I are in the same boat;, that my need and his need are the same thing. We are both trying to be in a relationship with something bigger that can fulfill what we are made for.” Having found this out, Stefano says, completely changes, in time, your vision of what work actually is. As a matter of fact, it changes the meaning of all relationships. This is true sharing: offering oneself without measure and being aware that only something bigger, something present, can bring to light what we have been made for. This is what makes the relationship with everything–every situation and every person–really possible and more human.
Stefano is starting to understand that work is a vital condition of life for men who are aware. He realizes that life is given to us to change, shape, and do all that is placed in our hands for this purpose; it is something bigger for which we are made. Work is participating in Someone Else’s work.
This discovery is a revolution. We are living in a world in which the value of work is realizing a planned result that is “socially” valued. It’s called success, the crowning glory of a career. The present is done without, meaning that what is in front of me now does not have value in itself, is not a pointer to something bigger that I cannot manipulate–and I should rather “serve,” embrace, love, and recognize! This is fundamental. Instead, everything is reduced to an instrument used to achieve a goal. We are beginning to understand better, though, as Stefano and his friends explain, the idea of merit. We are able to save what we do by being aware of an original relationship with the Mystery that constitutes us. Stefano says that his gesture of helping his friends who have lost their jobs reawakens him to the discovery that we are all beggars, that we all have needs, and that recognizing this relationship is exactly what work, as well as the effort and sacrifice connected with it, are given to us for.

A present ideal
Going deeper into this awareness is indispensable for understanding one’s work. It was a little like this for monasteries in the Middle Ages. We can understand better, Stefano continues, that without a recognized ideal, a present ideal, connecting our life to something bigger, it’s impossible to work well. After all, there is no work if it does not correspond to the need for a total meaning. The realization that we have been embraced by something bigger is the origin of our ironic attempts to live. While this position does not eliminate tragedies and challenges, Stefano gives many examples of how it provides him with a more human and intelligent attitude, and he recognizes a positive presence in his work environment. Many other friends have confirmed this experience. One realizes that the people the Good Lord puts in your our liveslife, like Stefano, are a presence that is there to help, and these friends shed light on the right true value of things.
This discovery, which is paradoxical since it originates from the evidence that we are not the ones to fix things, has surprising implications. It makes one able to look deeply, yet without disapproving, into someone else’s needs. It offers realistic solutions. And successful and also unhoped-for results are certainly there do happen (as shown by the witnesses here in the side box). The most important thing is that Stefano and his friends experience their jobs in a truer way. From this awareness to building (or rebuilding) monasteries, universities, hospitals, or cooperative banks that our fathers have handed down to us, it’s only a question of time, and… of grace!