Lewis Hines: Photography as a Spiritual Practice

Photography as a Spiritual Practice: Lewis Hines

little oyster shucker: 7-year old Rosie. Regular shucker. Her second year at it. Illiterate. Works all day. Shucks only a few pots a day. Varn & Platt Canning Co. Location: Bluffton, South Carolina. 1913

“He arrived at the coal mines, textile mills, and industrial factories dressed in a three-piece suit. He was just a humble Bible salesman, he claimed, who wanted to spread the good word to the laborers inside. What Lewis Hines actually wanted was to take photos of those laborers—and show the world what it looked like when children were put to work.”—Jessica Contrera, “The Searing Photos That Helped End Child Labor in America” in The Washington Post (9/3/2018).

This important article by Jessica Contrera in The Washington Post reminds us how art can change the world. Most of us know the story. Hines was a photographer in the early 1900s who photographed the horrendous working conditions of young children laboring in mines, factories, and any business that employed unskilled workers. He could enter these places by saying he was a Bible salesman!

Our hearts break when we see these young girls and boys, slightly older than toddlers, working long shifts in dangerous conditions. Their faces are dull. There are few smiles. They were, in essence, slave labor.

I love seafood, but almost every time I eat oysters, I see this childish girl photographed by Hines of maybe six or seven, with her yellow hair pulled back, standing on a stool to reach the table to shuck oysters with the older women. If you have ever shucked oysters, you know it is a dirty task that sprays mud all over you and includes the hazard of cuts from a slip of the oyster knife. It is not an easy job for adults, much less for children.

Oyster shells form the floor of the bleak room. The young girl’s apron is almost as big as she is. We do not see her face. That might be too much to bear. We do observe the women’s faces—perhaps relatives—working beside her. They look older than their presumed ages, with hapless expressions on their faces.

Photographic exposure to such scenes mobilizes our country and leads to labor laws for children. Hines not only shares dramatic pictures of children doing dangerous tasks, even for adults, but he also reveals the children’s ages and tells us their stories. For example, Hines’ story that accompanies this image is of “seven-year-old Rosie. Regular shucker. Her second year at it. Illiterate. Works all day. Only shucks a few pots a day. Varn & Platt Canning Co., Bluffton, South Carolina, published February 1913” (Library of Congress Photographs Online Catalog).

Hines’ work reminds us that art, photography, music, writing, and stories are as influential as guns and cannons in the revolutions of history. So when I talk to people about how they want to change the world, I remind them of how this one person with one camera and maybe a Bible in hand made a difference.

We are not all Lewis Hines, but we have been created with talents that can make a difference in others’ lives just as he did—with no threat of violence.

We discover and activate the difference we can make by connecting to the Christ within us and the Christ in our neighbor. We become the person God created us to be and lead others to help our neighbors become the people God created them to be.

Joanna. https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Whyte: Being Vulnerable as a Habitat for Our Humanity

Vulnerable: Habitat for Our Humanity

“The only choice we have as we mature is how to inhabit our vulnerability…”—David Whyte.

Vulnerability. Poet David Whyte gives us one word to take with us today. Vulnerability, however, does not live alone but resides in the word community.

Intimacy. Another word that lives with vulnerability. We allow someone we trust to see and hear our inner thoughts and concerns, our highs and lows.

Humility is also a close family member of this word community. We don’t think of ourselves as any better than someone else.

Humanness whispers in the ear of vulnerability. We are to take off our mask of “perfection.” We are to admit promptly our mistakes to others and learn from them.

Forgiveness must also be a beloved companion of vulnerability. We are to ask for forgiveness when we have wronged others and be ready to forgive ourselves for our own mistakes.

Vulnerability, intimacy, humility, humanness, and forgiveness are five construction workers in a family business crucial for building our own Habitat for Humanity.

David Whyte, Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment, and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words (Canongate Books 2019)

Joanna. Joannaseibert.com. https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Remembering Veterans

Remembering “The Great War”

“This is a war to end all wars.”—Woodrow Wilson.

I remember when we celebrated the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, the Great War, the War to End All Wars. The war officially ended in 1918 on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. In 2018, at 11 a.m. on November 11th, or Veterans Day in the morning, bells tolled in churches all over the globe. Special programs about the war were held worldwide, most notably in England, Paris, and France, where the world’s diplomats met to commemorate the peace accord that ended the war.

grandfather Whaley

Both of my grandfathers served in the war and came home. I never heard Grandfather Johnson speak of his experience. The other, Grandfather Whaley, rarely talked about the war itself, but he had much to say about his experience in the army. He was born in what is now the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Going into the armed service was his higher education.

When I was in college, my grandfather wrote me weekly on his old typewriter, on which several keys often would stick. The lines of type were uneven. Every letter, however, was full of his army experiences and how he related them to my new life in college. He would remind me that book learning was not the most critical part of my new life. He believed the best lessons were found in the people I would meet and the places where I would travel. Almost every sentence ended with etc., etc., etc.

I kept every one of his letters. The girls on my floor in my dorm would gather each week to hear about his wisdom from his life experiences a half-century earlier in the army in World War I—and about his present life in small-town Virginia.

 My latest book, Letters from my Grandfather, is about my grandfather’s letters and my response to him now, over fifty years later.

Did I forget to tell you that my grandfather always enclosed a dollar bill with each letter?

Joanna. https://www.joannaseibert.com/