To Those Who Keep Things Going

There are many heroic, hardworking people who do much of the work of the world – who keep things going, who hold homes and families together, and somehow do what has to be done. Yet there are many who are young – and some who are older – who don’t seem to have a real awareness of what it takes to keep things going. On this theme John Masefield wrote these lines:

To get the whole world out of bed

And washed, and dressed, and warmed, and fed,

To work, and back to bed again,

Believe me, Saul, costs worlds of pain.

This all suggests sincere appreciation for those who help to keep things going, often under difficult and discouraging conditions: the wives, the mothers who do a thousand chores. It is as one wit whimsically said: Housework is what women do that nobody notices until they don’t do it.” People’s feelings and attitudes and values are largely shaped by the environment in which they live. Oh, thanks to mothers who help to keep things running well, and to children who cooperate and appreciate, and help to keep things pleasantly in order. Thanks to fathers who go to work and face the world; who faithfully, to the best of their ability, provide for a family: fathers who work with their hands, their minds, their hearts; fathers and mothers who must sometimes make difficult decisions. There is much honest, modest, unnoticed, faithful work going on in the world. There is much that has to be done to keep things going – for nothing does itself. God bless the wonderful, sincere, hardworking people who keep things running, worldwide.

To get the whole world out of bed

And washed, and dressed, and warmed, and fed,

To work, and back to bed again,

Believe me, Saul, costs worlds of pain.