Over in Harlan, Kentucky, last month, I asked a coal miner if he dreaded heading to work in the mine each morning. No, he said. It was an adventure, sort of like being an astronaut, “going where no man had gone before.”
Later in the day, a half-mile underground near Pikeville, other miners talked to me about their work. (I was there gathering material for a Southern Baptist Seminary course on work and leisure.) The four men had been at it 10, 21, 25, and 40 years. One spoke of his satisfaction in upholding the mining tradition and reputation of his forebears, his “dad, papaw, and great papaw.” Another said his dad (a 30-year veteran) didn’t encourage him to mine, but was glad when he did, for it gave them a lot of shared things to talk about.
Earlier, in the admin trailer, I spotted a coal “tree” drawing, showing hundreds of product leaves along five main branches – Coke and Coke-Breeze; Light Oil; Gas; Chemicals; and Tar. Turns out, coal contributes to everything from copper smelting to roofing to street lighting to billiard balls to disinfectants. And these men were proud to be a part of that.
When asked what seminarians should know about the prayer needs of miners, they said safety was the first concern. “Any day you can see daylight at the end is a good day.” Of course, safeguards are everywhere. Refuge chambers stocked with food, water, tentage, oxygen, and medicine are designed to sustain 18 men for 96 hours. Personal GPS transmitters and carbon monoxide detector kits are linked to computer displays in the trailer. But the danger, from “inundation,” “black damp” oxygen deficiency from an accidental cut into an old shaft, equipment fires, etc. is ever present.
I marveled at their description of “retreat mining,” whereby they backed out of the network gradually, knocking out some wooden support beams, collapsing the mountain upon areas they’d completed. They knew they’d better hustle when the remaining 6x6s started to buckle. Indeed.
Later, back in Pikeville, I asked one of our M.Div. grads serving the region about their spirits, and he said they felt under-appreciated, even opposed. They loved what they did and took pride in “good quality work that honors God.” Many “loved the Lord” and did “what they felt called to do.”
I’d offered the miners an analogy they appreciated, that they were like soldiers doing dangerous, nationally important work. One volunteered that “they had each others’ backs” down there. Unfortunately, our national administration doesn’t have their backs as they toil bravely and daily at the coalface, soldiers of resources-stewardship, if you will.
Leave a Reply