Labore Est Saltare: To Work Is To Dance

Ora et labora, said Saint Benedict, 
pray and work.
So we became holy monks.
 
Then Love whispered, Ora et salta, 
pray and dance.
So we became fools
 
neither holy nor unholy, 
just drunk
on raindrops and sunbeams.

Can we work and dance at the same time? Tribal people teach us how. Pre-colonial Africans had work dances and work songs, which slaves brought to America. In parts of Africa, they still sing and dance while working. I have seen them do it... Even African longshoremen working on American ships. Thus the African American term "Worksong," like the jazz classic by Nat Adderly, embedded below.

But white Euro-culture divorced work from prayer, work from dance, work from song. We filled work with a sense of dread and anxiety. Why? Marx wrote all about that... 

When I was a Merchant Marine seaman, I was on a freighter in the port of Dakar, Senegal. The officer directed me to supervise African workers who were trying to move a huge crate across the deck to a position where the crane could hoist it down into the hull.

These workmen labored 12 hours straight with no rest, and no food but a few kola nuts wrapped in a bandana. They were listless and drowsy, and the American Merchant Marine officers disdained them, even kicking them when they got too sleepy.

I had no idea what I was doing or how to get the men to move the crate, which probably had some diplomat's car in it, headed for the American embassy. Finally the leader of the men pleaded with me, "Boss, let us do it the African way."

I looked up at the officer on the bridge, who frowned and shook his head. So I said, "No." 

They kept struggling and again the man asked me, "Let us do it the African way." Evidently the white American officers were dedicated to keeping the African workers subservient: it was a rule that they must not do anything "the African way." I had no idea what this was all about. It was 1968, I was just a 22 year old looking for some knowledge about the world, and I had never consciously encountered systemic, intentional, institutionalized racism.

The Africans made no headway with the crate. It wouldn't budge an inch. On the bridge, the officer looked down at us smugly. Now the longshoreman asked me a third time if they might do it the African way, and I gave up any pretense of control. "What the hell," I thought, "I don't know anything, and life should be more interesting than this."

So I challenged the men, "Go ahead, show us how to do it the African way!" The officer looked disgusted. He turned his back on us and went into the cabin. The Africans immediately started smiling. Their eyes literally brightened and their bodies stood tall. They began to sing, chanting in unison. A work song.

Every seventh beat, they pressed their shoulders to the crate and heaved, all together. The crate slid a good six inches each time. Moving across the deck as part of the rhythm of their dance, their song, that enormous crate was suddenly light and alive. It danced too. And in a very short time the men had moved it over fifty feet, under the crane.

The men were sweating. They had dazzling grins on their faces. They were very much awake. I learned more that day than in seven years of college and graduate school.