Labor Day Reflections

Labor Day has special significance for the United States of America. We were the only nation in history to work upward from a colony to the status of global superpower in as few as 200 years. To Western Pennsylvania, it is a holiday even closer to heart and home. Fully 97% of the world’s Anthracite coal was situated beneath its densely wooded, rolling hills. Miners dug for coal, oil, and metals harder and deeper than the hard-working farmer with his plow. Steel men worked hotter than slaves of southern cotton fields. Metalworkers pressed heavier than molders of the chemist’s plastic to make shiny products of permanence. Truly a Hard Work Capitol, only the Spirit of God could have sustained Western Pennsylvania men of energy and metal in their call to warm the winter North and produce the first Metal Nation. Evidence of Holy Spirit empowerment is found in the maximal density of Churches built by early congregations. Allegheny County hosts more than 1,100 churches in its 730 Square miles (1.5 churches per square mile), and the City of Pittsburgh hosts about 537 Churches in its 58 square miles (9.3 churches per square mile). The not-surprising association between heavy work and Holy Spirit power reasonably qualifies the region as a Spirit Capitol.

If these were Sons-of-God workers, as with Adam and Jesus Christ, their labor would be expected to bring undeniable good fruit. Though much of the region’s industry has been shut on account of energy crises, it remains true that the daily walk of Americans is maintained in steel and aluminum Arms of God for matchless safety and comfort. Consider the many bridges, autos, buses, trains & rails, roads & sidewalks, skyscrapers & high-rise apartments, safety railings, fire escapes, merchant vessels, naval ships, passenger airliners, military aircraft, etc., etc., etc., that regularly enfold Americans, and you begin to see the enduring care God and His men of good works continue to bring.

Another index of providential work and care associates with the striking salience of paternalism in Western Pennsylvania. Fatherhood finds expression in the Blue Law tradition that kept bars closed on Sunday so working men and their families could attend church to recharge their labor-challenged Spirit. The "Father Knows Best" theme also permeated regional media life. Pittsburgh’s KDKA was the Father of U.S. Radio Stations. Industrialists Andrew Carnegie’s library gift to the people of Pittsburgh was the First Free Library in the World, that words of wisdom might flourish. When public television emerged, Pittsburgh provided the First TV Father, Presbyterian minister Fred Rogers, an icon of fatherly guidance for youth all around the country. As American news grew to be a national fountain of knowledge for sustaining democracy, TV newscaster Bill Burns rose from the crucible of Pittsburgh to become a most trustworthy News Father throughout the longest career in TV broadcasting (extended by his beloved daughter, Patty Burns, who had the rare privilege of calling her favorite news professional “Dad” while on the air). Many disc jockeys served up happy words and music to the Children of Steel as Radio Fathers, forging a place in their hearts for generations. Names like The Jaybird, Porky Chedwick (Daddio of the Radio), Rege Cordic, and Bill Cardille (a radio & TV "Media Grandfather" for his 60 years of service) complete a Voice Hall of Fame that helped buoy spirits of hard-working families around the clock, bring lovely things (not defeatism, hostility, or hatred) to the mind, and calm waters stirred by too fast a work pace, too much traffic, too much conflict, too much crime, too many wars, and too little love in the world at large.

Labor husbands and fathers also were kind to wives and expectant mothers during their Labor Days giving birth to precious children. These workmen built from limited labor wages one of the rare women’s hospitals in the country, Magee Hospital, so expectant mothers would receive extreme kindness, latest in obstetric & pediatric counsel, and safest labor & delivery. Comprehensiveness of care extended to renown pre-natal courses for new mothers, so they could enter the delivery room with a Mother of God Degree (MaG) and return home fully-qualified in the care & feeding of the most delicate and dear life on the planet. Brawny labor fathers were about as heavenly as fathers could be to their beloved wives-become-mothers and tiny, fragile newborns.

When youth grew up in Western Pennsylvania, Labor Fathers did all they could to prepare them for a life easier than they had been given. Their working dollars built over 100 institutions of higher learning and secondary vocational training in the region, creating a wide-spreading Education Capitol close to home sweet home for the Sons of Labor. Heavy labor produced awesome, often national, athletes. Sports excellence also opened the door to college and easier knowledge work via scholarships, especially for the all-out sport of football. Hot and dangerous heavy industry sacrificed men’s bodies, and so did crowd-drawing, trophy-winning football. The prize of an educated mind was won the hardest of ways around here for young men. But educated minds, more so than strong arms and backs, were to become the new Throne of Work & Leadership in the modern world.

In the core labor realms of coal and steel, educated Sons of Labor gradually filled regional “think tanks” of energy and metallurgy. The sizable local brotherhood of national corporate giants that built and energized industrial America also birthed world-class laboratories at home: U.S. Steel Research, Alcoa Research, Crucible Research, Coal Research, Westinghouse Research, etc., and filled them with home-grown scientists and technicians to keep regional industrial technology at the peak of excellence for national and international diffusion. The combination of ever-improving global-scope technology with eternally creative Christian Minds-of-Christ produced a gold mine of significant inventions. The fruitfulness of heavy labor and seasoned faith early crowned the region as an R&D Capitol AND Invention Capitol.

Rivers have always been a rich natural resource of Pennsylvania, especially Western Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh situates at the juncture of three major rivers (Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio Rivers), a rare privilege of world geography. Furthermore, the rivers connect to other waterways that reach most of the U.S.A., Latin America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. Accordingly, the region is strategically set by our Creator as a River Capitol and Port of Global Commerce for non-perishables. From this crossroads of water, potent energy and materials of strength & permanence can be ported to a needful world, along with matchless technology and timeless faith. Such divine positioning commends the workforce as Missionaries of Heat and Strength and Life, a surprise assembly of Sons of God with both good news and good things for a world awaiting completion in Christ.

Jesus worked as a material man in His days on earth, the most famous carpenter’s son and Spirit Son of God. There was little singing then on account of the poor treatment from His people Israel. Hymns of His Church came later and in great number. They remain the most widely sung testimonies of God and music in America today. Western Pennsylvania’s Kings of Coal were somberly celebrated for their brave and sacrificial work through popular songs like: John Henry, Sixteen Tons, Big John, or Dark as a Dungeon. I found less about metal men, so decided to write them a personal tribute (I actually became a metallurgist, a total immersion commitment!). Lyrics to Material Men appear below to complete your Labor Day Reflections about whose work gives you the enduring privilege to stand so easy today.

Material Men William C. Patterson, Ph.D.

Lyric

It was a Carpenter’s Son, who got His Father’s work done. A Material Man in things higher than high. He took Monument Stone, and built a Church of His own, Forever design: Temple “Never Die.”

Thank the Lord for the Material Men. Thank Him now, like we thanked Him then. Lady Love knows Material Men. Holding everything together . . . Now as then.

Twelve Material Men, building now as then, To a plan making news to this very day. Architecture so fine, only God can refine. The Carpenter’s Carpenter showed the way.

Men of steel, forging character real, Built a new promised land . . . structure high. Fire now as then, water used again, Some things never die.

The Refiner today chose a light metal way, Bright in the Son, precious energy won. Fire inside for the Spirit to ride, Material Men of another day.

Copyright 2016

Vision

Intro

Visualize Earth suspended in space. Gradually zoom in to Nazareth,

with Jesus helping His father in Joseph’s carpenter shop.

Verse 1 Visualize Jesus at John’s baptism. Visualize Holy Spirit Dove descending on Jesus, ordaining His Earthly ministry.

In succession, visualize Mount Sinai, Tablets of Ten Commandments, Mount Zion,

finally standing figure of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Chorus Visualize Jacob’s sons standing in a circle around Jacob’s Well.

Morph to figures to Jesus’ Twelve Apostles standing in a circle, Jesus at the center,

crossroads of light extending outward globally from where He stands.

Visualize Jesus as bridegroom, with an immaculate bride gradually crystallizing into view at His side,

figure of the Church.

Verse 2

Visualize Jesus’ Twelve Apostles standing in a circle.

Progressively visualize (in miniature) at the center of the circle, cities they visited and established churches. Progressively visualize Temple Zion, Church of Rome, cathedrals of Europe

(Wittenberg, Notre Dame, Westminster Abby), Statue of Liberty, St. Paul Cathedral, small country church,

finally an image of Jesus standing

and transforming into a handsome, well-dressed American Christian man (Temple of God).

Chorus

Verse 3 Visualize Andrew Carnegie (Scottish Christian) against backdrop of steel mills of Western Pennsylvania,

sky lit by steelmaking flames, steelworkers hard at work in the heat making national steel products.

Visualize steel as a glowing skeletal structure inside skyscrapers, roads, and sidewalks;

also glowing materials of construction for factories, trains, cars.

Visualize Three Rivers of Pittsburgh as a Trinity Symbol, flowing and glowing amidst the Steel City landscape.

Chorus

Verse 4

Visualize Christian Minister Charles Martin Hall (inventor of Hall Process for making aluminum).

Visualize enduring aluminum top to Washington Monument, Wear-Ever aluminum cookware (first commercial use of Hall Process aluminum), aluminum reflectors in diverse lighting products, then aluminum as the crown of transportation (planes, trucks, cars, motorcycles, boats with spiraling fire turbine visible within at engine position).

Final Chorus

Visualize Earth from space, zooming in to see how all continents are beautifully appointed with metal structures of permanence. Visualize sinuous glowing metal in and on roadways, railways, skyways linking the lighted cities together, workmen still maintaining.

Soft Repeat Final Phrase

Focus on a single family living in a one-story Fire-Safe Energy Home, with metal, stone, and glass liberally used for strength, beauty, permanence, safety. Peek inside to see family surrounded by metal cookware, appliances, furniture.

Softer Repeat Final Phrase Finally show happy family standing together, arm-in-arm, home backdrop fading to a soft light (at toll of bell) behind God’s matchless eternal Temples made without hands, quietly bonding forever in love.

Copyright 2016

#Labor #Father