In Praise of Physical Work

Certain types of work are more valued than others. When someone asks, “What do you do?” the reply is often weighed, sifted, and placed in a subconscious pecking order of value. Many of us have been on the receiving end of this kind of sizing up. Practical work is placed lower on the list of modern society’s values. Work that is paid is valued more highly than work that is unpaid.

The ordering of such values happens, in part, because of the way capitalist economies function. As well as this, there’s the way schools prioritize academic learning over practical skills. As a society, we’d much rather move away from certain forms of work, placing them out of view. If we could, we’d replace more and more of the practical aspects of industry with machines, computers, apps, or artificial intelligence. But why is work done by humans important? Why does bodily labor matter? Is there something to preserve from the thousands of years of the history of human bodily work?

Spring arrives at a homestead in Worcestershire. Garden beds prepared with shovel and fork are now full of potential. Clods crumble between the fingers. What was covered with winter rye is now clean and brown. The soil is full of life. Earthworms and woodlice are prolific. An abundance of microbes, organisms invisible to the naked eye, are also doing their part in the ecosystem of the topsoil. Days later seeds are dropped in rows – miniature valleys in the earth. The spring rains water the ground while at the same time filling water butts to be used later during drier weather. Young chickens cluck away, happy as can be, protected by their coop yet let out to range freely. They can count on being fed at least twice a day. Weeks go by and small shoots start to appear, stretching upward despite little sunlight – wheat, parsnips, leeks, spinach, turnips. The growth of the crops shows the orderliness of the sowing. The neatness is pleasing. The leeks especially smell fragrant. Some slugs think so too. These are picked off and fed to the ducks.

Besides working part time as a carpenter, Kev Alviti raises food. Growing a variety of vegetables and fruits as well as raising chickens for eggs and meat, Kev has plenty of practical work to do. He has saved many of his own seeds and preserves some of his harvest. Among the many tasks, two of Kev’s favorites are sowing seeds and pricking out seedlings. “It’s a job filled with such promise of the potential harvest to come. I enjoy getting the pots ready, placing the seed, carefully making sure I don’t waste any, putting them in a place I think they’ll grow the best.” Kev also enjoys pruning fruit trees and “planning for the shape of the tree that will take years to appear.” Such an endeavor requires a long-term view: “I planted some trees at my parents’ [place] over twenty years ago and I’ve pruned and sculpted them every year into what they are now.”

When I ask Kev which things he enjoys doing by hand rather than the typical mechanized approach, he replies, “One job I have taken to is using the scythe to keep on top of the grass and weeds. In the middle of summer, it’s great to go out very early in the morning, while the grass is damp with dew and the heat of the day hasn’t built up.” Using a scythe is an inherently physical task. The motion of the body as it works is rhythmic, a rhythm created by the human body and not by a machine. Efficiency is not the goal here. Although this might seem a laborious task for some, there’s an element of pleasure for him in this kind of work. “You soon start cutting in a rhythm and, like the double tap of the mallet on chisel of my own trade, you can’t help but be warmed by this.” The work determines its own speed, punctuated by rest. “Breaks come naturally as you sharpen the blade every five minutes or so, stopping, standing, and breathing as you run the stone over the edge, the tool setting the pace you must work at.” For Kev, the act of growing his food even effects the experience of eating. “You’re much less likely to waste it and your level of appreciation for the simple things goes up.” The appreciation of taste grows with the level of knowledge and investment that he has put into growing the food.

Photograph by iloyd / Adobe Stock.

On a modern farm often fewer crops are grown – sometimes just one. In nonorganic farming, pests are controlled with synthesised chemical pesticides, which can be damaging to human health. The ground is kept bountiful by chemical fertilizer. Chickens are fattened up by steroids to increase their market value, and often kept in caged conditions without space to roam as they were made to do. Plans are already underway to increase the viability of growing food in laboratory settings. The first “meat” burger was grown in 2013 without the hard work of being in the elements and raising cattle. It is thought that larger pieces of “meat” will require “artificial circulatory systems” in order to “distribute nutrients and oxygen.” In such an enterprise there is no relationship to animal or earth.

In contrast, raising food in an organic, humane way offers a particular connection to the earth. The body works the ground. The craft and knowledge of one’s work grows over time. The body builds an aptitude for the tasks of sowing, pruning, harvesting, and a myriad of other tasks. People working together during sowing and harvest can build bonds of togetherness. Such work with the earth won’t be done without regard to the natural habitat in which it is carried out. Kev understands this: “I sometimes find myself standing frozen in the garden, watching some seemingly inconsequential thing unfolding in front of me – robins fighting over territory, a ladybird eating aphids – and it makes me think about what we’ve tried to create here.”

At a bakery in a Lincolnshire village batches of flour with added salt are mixed with yeast and water. Now sticky and pliable to the touch, the wet dough is left to ferment. The baker has her breakfast in the meantime. The dough rises. It’s folded gently to be left to ferment again. Now cut and weighed, it has another period of rest before being shaped. The clay oven receives the loaves. Its heat bakes the bread and also warms the room. The smell is aromatic. Can a scented candle produce as pleasing a smell as this? As the bread is taken out of the oven, the crisp brown crust protects a soft interior. The bread is left to cool and the loaves are left to rest for a while.

Over millennia, people in various cultures have practiced the craft of baking bread. Bread is still baked by hand in homes and bakeries even now. Sonya Hundal is a baker who hand-crafts artisan bread in a traditional wood-fired oven. Despite the fact that bread can be produced more cheaply with a heavily industrialized process, she pursues a more traditional approach. She sources her flour from locally grown wheat ground at a windmill eleven miles away. The breads she bakes at the bakery are made by hand in ways that are slower – at a human pace. Slow-fermented bread, foccacias, sourdoughs, and ciabattas to name a few.

The work has a physicality to it. “There’s a lot of heavy lifting. Firing the oven itself is hard work, as it is linked to the process of stacking and splitting wood as well as growing and coppicing trees.”  Such an approach is a craft unto itself. The simplicity of a hearty loaf of bread is crafted with an understanding of the smallest details, such as knowing how temperature affects fermentation and flavor. Working with a wood-fired clay oven is “also variable because of the wood, the weather, the wind direction, the humidity, the temperature, the breads you choose to bake on a particular day, and even the mood and energy of the baker.”

Photograph by Syda Productions / Adobe Stock.

This work evidently has its pleasures. On favoring a clay oven, Sonya notes that “the joy of working with such an oven is learning all the adjustments to consistently make a good loaf and to feel there is always something new to learn.” The value of baking in this way goes beyond the work process itself. The eating of well-made bread is better for humans than bread made with industrialized practices. Stone-ground flour retains valuable nutrients; flour made with modern high-speed milling is often fortified with minerals and synthetic vitamins instead. As a member of the Real Bread Campaign, Sonya is clearly passionate about healthy bread, and recently supported a comparative study between supermarket loaves and slow-fermented loaves.

Many of us cannot conceive of a diet without bread. It’s seen as a staple. A thing without taste necessarily, used as a container for other foodstuffs. For Sonya, this way of thinking misses out on the joy of making and eating good bread. For her, “bread is a meal, not a flimsy package for a quick snack.”

At a time when, in a factory, thousands of loaves can be made every day, it seems there is still a lot to be said for bread made on a small scale by hand. It involves a closeness to the ingredients and a knowledge of the art from start to finish. The investment of bodily work surely has an impact on the bread too. Done right, this is a human process, working toward nourishment and not just survival. The provision of the rains which result in the wheat harvest can be an occasion for songs or joy, as can the harvesting, the baking, and the thankful eating of what has been provided.

Work is a task given to humanity by God himself. Undoubtedly there are workers in heavily industrialized systems who enjoy their work and make a personal contribution to the workforce. But there is something particular about the body in relation to work. The body is given. It is a gift. There are those who would replace as much bodily work as possible with machines or artificial intelligence. But when it comes to work, doing away with the body altogether is a mistake. Work that doesn’t lean too heavily on machinery is consistent with created order.

We live in a world that values the novel and technological. When we are told that manual and physical aspects of work are drudgery, this is often a precursor to selling us a high-tech solution or outsourcing the work cheaply to make more profit. But the good work that the body engages in does have dignity, whether that’s playing the piano or planting a garden, washing the dishes or building a house, crafting a table or baking bread.

Granted, many of us are embedded in a modernized workforce as it actually is. Many have jobs that don’t include traditional bodily labor. It’s not necessarily possible or wise to make immediate changes to ones’ work situation. But there is often more scope for bodily work than we might think. Whether it’s growing herbs on a windowsill or choosing to bake bread at home from time to time, such unpaid labor nevertheless has value that goes beyond mere economic calculation. This includes the priceless labor of caring for one’s own babies, children, or elderly relatives, rather than sending dependents to other agencies for care. Such labor is usually full of sacrifice, but it can also have a value and dignity that come with loving, bodily presence and activity.

We are created as whole persons – mind, body, spirit. Work in a world that is fallen often includes blood, sweat, and tears. Yet despite the fact that there are thorns and thistles, bodily work can still be appreciated.