Happy Labor Day 2012

"Find a job you love and you'll never work another day in your life."

~unknown

I am here in my office on the Labor Day Holiday. I am not here because I have to be here. I could have taken the day off. The reason I didn’t take the day off is because I wanted to be here today. I love my job! I love the people I serve with. Together we are people caring about people, we are a service industry. Blessed are the peacemakers, the firefighters, EMS personnel, emergency room nurses and doctors, acute care nurses and doctors, and all who support them in saving and preserving lives.

Today I pray for those who are unemployed, under-employed, or still working at a job they don’t love. I give thanks and praise for those who are employed and loving what they do. I am wishing all a very blessed and Happy Labor Day!!

Almighty God, you so linked our lives one with another that all we do affects for good or ill, all other lives: So guide us in the work that we do, that we may do it not for self alone, but for the common good; and, as we seek a proper return for our own labor, make us mindful of the rightful aspirations of other workers, and arouse our concern for those who are out of work; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen ~The Book of Common Prayer 261

Bill Brown's Test

All firemen have courage, but it cannot be known until the test how many have this particular kind, -- Bill Brown's kind.  What happened was this:  Engine 29, pumping and pounding her prettiest, stood at the northwest corner of Greenwich and Warren streets, so close to the blazing drug-house that Driver Marks thought it wasn't safe there for the three horses and led them away. That was fortunate, but it left Brown alone, right against the cheek of the fire, watching his boiler, stoking in coal, keeping his steam-gauge at 75. As the fire gained, chunks of red-hot sandstone began to smash down on the engine. Brown ran his pressure up to 80 and watched the door anxiously where the boys had gone in.  Then the explosion came, and a blue flame, wide as a house, curled its tongues halfway across the street, enwrapping engine and man, setting fire to the elevated railway station overhead, or such wreck of it as the shock had left.  Bill Brown stood by his engine with a wall of fire before him and a sheet of fire above him. He heard quick footsteps on the pavements, and voices, that grew fainter and fainter, crying, "Run for your lives!" He heard the hose-wagon horses somewhere back in the smoke go plunging away, mad with fright and their burns. He was alone with the fire and the skin was hanging in shreds on his hands, face, and neck. Only a fireman knows how one blast of flame can shrivel up a man, and the pain over the bared surfaces was, — well, there is no pain worse than that of fire scorching in upon the quick flesh seared by fire.  Here, I think, was a crisis to make a very brave man quail. Bill Brown knew perfectly well why every one was running; there was going to be another explosion in a couple of minutes, maybe sooner, out of this inferno in front of him. And the order had come for every man to save himself, and every man had done it except the lads inside. And the question was, Should he run or should he stay and die? It was tolerably certain that he would die if he stayed. On the other hand, the boys of old 29 were in there. Devanny, McArthur, Gillon, and Merron, his friends, his chums. He'd seen them drag the hose in through that door, — there it was now, a long, throbbing snake of it, — and they hadn't come out. Perhaps they were dead. Yes, but perhaps they weren't. If they were alive, they needed water now more than they ever needed anything before and they couldn't get water if he quit his engine. Bill Brown pondered this a long time, perhaps four seconds; then he fell to stoking in coal, and he screwed her up another notch, and he eased her running parts with the oiler. Explosion or not, pain or not, alone or not, he was going to stay and make that engine hum. He had done the greatest thing a man can do, — had offered his life for his friends.  It is pleasant to know that this sacrifice was averted. A quarter of a minute or so before the second and terrible explosion, Devanny and his men came staggering from the building. Then it was that Merron fell and McArthur checked his flight to save him. Then it was, but not until then, that Bill Brown left Engine 29 to her fate [she was crushed by the falling walls], and ran for his life with his comrades. He had waited for them; he had stood the great test.

 “… remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord… “~ 1Thessalonians 1:3 NRSA

I.N.J.