Laborare est orare

Words are my business, and then there is writers’ block.

If nothing appears interesting and grabs my attention, how should it interest someone else. 

Well, I had the block big time and then I walked down a street in Liverpool that has a Catholic Primary School – not uncommon in Liverpool – and there was the school bus parked up with the school motto on the side. Laborare est orare which means ‘To work is to pray.’

Yes! There was a translation underneath, for oiks like me.

Laborare est orare. On the spot I thought these three words were up there with the linguistic classic, ‘Granddad smokes pot’. I suspected laborare est orare is in the same league but to be sure, I needed to go home and write some lists.

List 1. Granddad smokes pot, is to linguistics, what the Silver Ghost is to vintage cars. Three words but unending information.

Let’s look.

Granddad = man, who is old, who has children who have children.

Smokes = burns narcotic substances and inhales the smoke, tends to addiction, breaks the law but granddad is one chilled guy.

Pot = illegal substance enjoyed as a recreational drug to produce feelings of well-being

Smoke and pot have other connotations and grandpas are of an age to remember smoking chimneys, but that is fanciful. Granddad smokes pot has nothing to do with chimneys. Nevertheless, the meaning is there and is valid so I include the smoking chimneys and it makes 15 pieces of information from 3 words. 

Laborare est orare is also 3 words, with as many meanings but more subtle and pernicious.

List 2. Laborare = To work = diligence leading to production of something, usually for profit of which the worker sees little. 

To work is to move a force through a distance. 

Doing work is about converting energy from one form to another, ending as heat. (7)

Est = is = 2nd person singular of the verb to be and using it means the maxim work is prayer must be true. (3)

Orare = To pray = to kneel and mutter mindless outpourings as Thomas Hardy called them, and thus put your expectations in the hands of a deity, thereby absolving the boss, the teacher, the pupil or myself of any responsibility for the outcome. (8)

I make that 18 pieces of information. Work and prayer have it!

Connecting work to prayer is well cunning. It removes scientific meanings. No more ungodly stuff about forces and distance or converting energy to do work.

In 1616 Galileo had to recant his support of Copernicus’s heliocentric postulate or burn at the stake. 

It didn’t take him long to decide what was best and signed promptly on the dotted Catholic line to affirm his mistake. He claimed to have had his fingers crossed behind his back and to have muttered, ‘The earth still goes around the sun,’ as he signed.

It took the Church 400 years to quietly agree that Galileo was right so the current bunch of theologians don’t want to mix it with physicists and risk further embarrassment. Nevertheless, the meanings are valid even if theologians are not interested. 

That leaves us with the assertion that work and prayer are the same thing. Claiming prayer can move a force through a distance belongs in Harry Potter realm but that has never scared a vicar. But the assertion, work equals prayer equals working, means life is a pretty cushy prospect without responsibility.

That would be a good idea if one could leave it at that, but no! 

Meanings are trumped by interpretation. Just as smoking chimneys is not the point of Grandad smokes pot someone will try and prove the contrary. So it was only a matter of time before some smart Alec realised that if your expectations weren’t met, or those of the boss or teacher, you probably hadn’t worked and therefore, prayed enough. God is the great arbiter in these matters. Suddenly, we have a bishop’s and capitalist’s dream come true. Working people to death, making super-profits is helping the poor exploited worker to eternal salvation. What is there not to like?

The Marxist dialectic is what buggers it up.

Even 10 year olds see through this risible scheme and they usually leave church primary schools, as I did, a lovely rounded polished little atheist and churches remain reassuringly empty.

Maybe there is a god, after all.

But only when I wrote this blog, did it clear my mind and let me see why having a free hand at meanings is a dangerous thing. Laborare est orare is not a million miles from Arbeit macht frei. Both use just 3 words and bizarre interpretations to pull the wool over our eyes.

To work is to pray is too close for comfort to the Arbeit macht frei hammered in forged steel above the gate at Auschwitz.

Arbeit macht frei = To work is to be free. Laborare est Orare = to work is to pray. 

Both are a lie and liars are always found out, but don’t rely on the clergy to illuminate matters. That can take 400 years.