Getting the true measure of menial tasks

Sir, – Ann Marie Hourihane in her excellent column (Opinion, March 18th) refers to the contempt for menial tasks that has “caused us problems”.

Our understanding of work that is menial has changed because our ability to grasp its meaning has changed. The word, derived from the 14th-century Anglo-French meignial , belonging to a household, originally engendered a sense of rootedness and connectedness and nowadays only implies something that is monotonous and anonymous.

This is significant not only because it separates the “menial” nature of work from its relational context, but also because it values this work solely in economic terms. Thus we have come to believe that the only help worth giving or the only work worth doing is not offered, but sold. The unique way in which ordinary chores foster relationships has been devalued in the modern cult of achievement and celebrity.

Christians worship a God who has taken on our frail humanity and has lowered himself to meet us. So we need not dismiss the mundane routines of our physical state as inconsequential, but rather offer the ordinary tasks and the close relationships back to him trusting that all work is his. – Yours, etc,

READ MORE

Dr NOEL McCUNE,

Ardfreelin,

Newry.