Conclusion
Naturally, all of us have to work. But exhausting labor too (like that of Yeshua and Paul) can bring a sense of joy and participation in creation of the universe like that described in today's responsorial, Psalm 147.
Even work for Amazon could be dignified - absent the intense surveillance, constant race against the clock, low pay, and wage theft at the hands of one of the wealthiest companies in the world run by the globe's second richest man. That sort of work can and does drive people over the edge even to the point of suicide.
The efforts by Alabama's Amazon employees to unionize represent an attempt by wage earners to humanize all of that harshness. Within the capitalist system as we know it, unionization is the closest workers can get to escape slave-like conditions and completely alienated labor. The real humanization however would come from transforming the workplace into a cooperative where employees would be self-empowered.
As always, the call of today's readings is to do what our faith tells us the Great Father-Mother God did in the person of Yeshua: become human. In today's instance that means humanizing the workplace. That means opposition to Amazon's exploitation of workers. It implies support of unions everywhere. It suggests support of the co-op movement.
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