The Glory of Chores

Sigh. My life would be so much better without housework or yard maintenance or errands. Yes? No. Washing, straightening, or grocery shopping keeps the rest of life in balance and enables me to live in clean spaces, wear laundered clothes, open the refrigerator and find food. Such work is a fact of life.

I find myself rushing through it, though. There's a sense that I'm wasting my time and should get on to the next thing, or perhaps hire a housecleaner, yard person, someone else to do these tasks because they're unimportant. Which leads me to ask: what is important?

My life is not about accomplishing what I think I need to accomplish. That is merely a path to constant frustration and interruption. True, I have goals and dreams and projects and intentions. But in the big picture, I must remember, my true life is "hidden with God," and it's not about doing. That includes big doings, like working on my book or teaching a class, and small doings, like making my bed. When I look at it this way, I see the importance of a task isn't all that important!

In other words, inhabiting each moment wherever I am, is my true purpose. Whether I'm mowing the lawn* or peeling carrots or giving a poetry reading. Am I walking in love and grace? Now that's important. My life is a being, and I'm trying to remember that while doing chores. Breathing. Thinking good thoughts. Being fully present instead of rushing to get to the "real" purpose of my life.

When I remember to inhabit the moments of trivial tasks, they become wonderful. Magical even. Ordinary things are seeds of blessing.

A couple of writers from Wildfire Writing's Uptown class have created some poems about doing chores. So...

Is there a menial task you can infuse with a sense of purpose, rather than rushing through?


*Last month I mowed the lawn for the first time in my entire life. Golly. I don't know whether to be proud or embarrassed. I was ready to jump in again and do it the next week, but my husband insisted on taking over. When I did get a chance to mow again, I found out the secret reason why he's always done it: it's a pleasure. Scent of green grass. Rumble of motor. The sharp stripe of short grass unrolling at your feet . . .

Sacred Moments

"The sacred moments, the moments of miracle, are often the everyday moments, the moments which, if we don't look with more than our eyes or listen with more than our ears, reveal only . . . the gardener, the stranger coming down the road behind us, a meal like any other meal. But if we look with our hearts, if we listen with all of our being and our imagination - if we live our lives not from vacation to vacation, from escape to escape, but from the miracle of one instant of our precious lives to the miracle of the next - what we may see is Jesus himself, what we may hear is the first faint sound of a voice somewhere deep within us . . . " --Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat

Favorite Lines from The Brothers K

I've sat through many a sermon in my life, but my favorite sermons have always come in the shape of novels. Here are some of the delightfully wise passages in The Brothers K which have made an impact on me.

"Like many a Christian before them, Mama and the Elder justified their machinations with Christ's famous sentence: "I came not to send peace, but a sword." And like many a Christian before them, they completely forgot that the only sword-shaped weapon Jesus actually used was the one He died on."

Simple, perennial, and profound.

"Only the written can truly live a life.
So who I was, what I was, had to be unwritten."

And so many times in my life I've gotten myself all "written" up, scribbled here and there, when I needed to be a blank page, waiting and ready and open.

"She tried the easy route first: scrunching up into an even tighter ball, she whimpered, 'Dear Jesus. Help!" The result was instantaneous.../'Phooey!' Bet said with a sudden strength born, I guess, of exasperation with her fear and helplessness. But...who's to say her prayer hadn't invoked Him so fast that both the exasperation and the phooey came from the Christ in Bet as He moved the frightened child gently aside, in order to help?"

Phooey prayers are just as valid - maybe more so.



More thoughts about the Christ in us, as seen through the eyes of a child.



Stories have always been the best way to learn things. I seem to recall a certain parable-teller who knew this...

Grace

Streams don't struggle to flow
Fire does not try to be hot
Sometimes we just give

--Larry Logan

Awaken

We awaken in Christ's body
as Christ awakens our bodies,
and my poor hand is Christ, He enters
my foot, and is infinitely me.

I move my hand, and wonderfully
my hand becomes Christ, becomes all of Him
(for God is indivisibly
whole, seamless in His Godhood).

I move my foot, and at once
He appears like a flash of lightning.
Do my words seem blasphemous?--Then
open your heart to Him

and let yourself receive the one
who is opening to you so deeply.
For if we genuinely love Him,
we wake up inside Christ's body

where all our body, all over,
every most hidden part of it,
is realized in joy as Him,
and He makes us, utterly, real,

and everything that is hurt,
that seemed to us dark, harsh, shameful,
maimed, ugly, irreparably
damaged, is in Him transformed

and recognized as whole, as lovely,
and radiant in His light
we awaken as the Beloved
in every last part of our body.

--Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022)

Quietude, Part 2

...continued from "Invitation to Enter into Quietude," by Brother Gerald Mathison.

...Although you could no doubt take advantage of this life*time to think out and resolve many matters for yourself, you stand a much better chance of having them resolved in much more meaningful ways, as well as countless other benefits for yourself, if you leave all this work up to God. He won't let you down. He asks that you be quiet and receptive so He might have the opportunity to "get a word in edgewise."

As the days of your life* go by, you may at times feel guilty for your inactivity. This is to be expected. However, please do not let such feelings deter you from relaxing and cooperating with God by trying to remain receptively open to Him. We are not encouraging you to do absolutely nothing during your life, but we are suggesting that it is very important that you greatly reduce your activity so you may enter more fully into the relaxed receptivity and peace that a life of faith offers. Perhaps you will find it helpful now and then to refer to one of the gospels (the New Testament books of Matthew, Mark Luke and John) as a means of support in your availability to God. . . . to assist you in your primary objective of receptive quietude, the passive form, the contemplative form, that will allow God to work in you. Rather than you "plugging in" to God, it is God who will be "plugging in" to you. Your ongoing desire to allow Him to come to you and be operative within you is the basic thrust of a successful life.

In what ways can you reduce your activity, letting God "plug into" you?

*I've substituted "your life", "life of faith" or "life" for the word "retreat."

Quietude

I am basking in some simple truths about quiet and receptivity, found on a leaflet, received by my friend Clemie and forwarded to me. It is a personal reflection of Brother Gerald Mathison of Trappist Abbey of Our Lady of Guadalupe. As guestmaster, Brother Gerald shares this wisdom with all retreat guests. I am using portions of it, and do so with permission.

Invitation to Enter into Quietude

Living in our modern day society demands a great deal from each of us. The mounting anxiety from these demands seldom permits time for us to "go apart" and be separated in order that we might take stock of our lives. A spiritual life*, however, does allow us the opportunity to "go apart."

...Our society has ingrained in us that we find success only when we put forth effort. A life of faith*, however, is a little different from that. When we "go apart" for a spiritual life, we are seeking to make ourselves available so God can work in us and speak to us. He is not able to do so if we keep ourselves continually occupied and busy with doing things that WE think will make for a successful life. We need to be quiet. We need to convince ourselves that it is perfectly all right to be quiet during our life, that quietude is not a copout but a state of receptivity. If we allow our mind and body to be quiet, they are free to be open to God. If we, however, keep our mind and body occupied with over-activity, they are not nearly as able to quietly open to God who is the actual director of our life.

Through quietude, are you making yourself available to God?

*I have substituted the word "life of faith" or "life" for the word "retreat" all throughout.