Making Holy the Mundane

As a wife and mother, I crave moments when I feel most my Self.

Drinking coffee in the pre-dawn silence of my house; Gazing upon a piece of art on an afternoon spent leisurely strolling through a museum; Sinking into a good book that speaks to something deep down in my Soul.

As a wife and mother, these moments are rare and fleeting.

So when I read an article lately that talked about finding the Holy in the mundane and ended with, "God loves earthly things," I paused.

Am I finding God in the earthly things? 

I try, and try hard, to make time for the things I listed above, and I do an okay job.  But - what about those inevitable moments that comprise the majority of our lives?  The moments of mundane reality: vacuuming, preparing lunches, wiping the dog's noseprints off of the backdoor for the trillionth time in a day.  If those moments make up the majority of my life...if I am I spending most of my time in a space of chores & errands, does that mean that the majority of my life is not sacred?

But God loves earthly things.

Can that be true?  Can it be true that folding socks is Holy? Because it sure as hell can feel like torture.  

But maybe, just maybe, we can find the Divine in the mundane.  Maybe She lies at the back of our dyer alongside that very last stray sock.  Maybe as we are waist deep in our top load, She is reaching up to pull us in deeper to make us ask ourselves, why.  Why do we do the vacuuming, the cooking, the laundry?  Some of us may answer that we do them so that the other Moms at school don't judge us for sending our kid to school with syrup on his t-shirt, but most of us would also say we do it for Love.  We wash, dry, and fold those tiny, elusive socks so our children find their feet warm and dry (or maybe it's so that their feet don't stink ... neither here nor there).  

My Grandmother used to say that if the man is the Head of the household, the woman is the Heart.  How often do we acknowledge ourselves as the Heart of our household?  Rather, we tend to wake up, and as soon as our feet hit the floor we begin to engage in the mundane obligations with an undercurrent of resentment.  What if when our feet hit the floor, we take a moment to place a crown on our unwashed tousled heads (I mean an imaginary one, but if you have a real one, rock that tiara, Sister!) -  A crown that distinguishes us "Heart of Household."  Maybe if each morning we remember who we are and choose, as we place our raw and wrinkled hands into scalding dishwater, to remember that this moment is Holy.

The soap is sacred, and the water is Holy Water that washes away the remnants of communion shared atop the altar of our food encrusted dinnertable.

Don't misunderstand me.  This doesn't come easy.  Yesterday evening as I tried to practice what I am preaching, I found myself frustrated and struggling.  I took a breath and asked Where is God in this?!  And then I lit a candle.  I lit a candle to honor the act of scrubbing my countertops and sweeping pencil shavings off of the floor leftover from an intense Kindergarten homework session.

Ritual.

The best way I can think to honor the Divine in the mundane is Ritual.  My universal ritual is to light a candle.  That's it.  I light a candle.  Anytime.  Doing dishes? Light a candle.  Getting ready for work?  Light a candle.  Scrubbing the toilet?  Light a candle.  Cleaning up vomit?  Light a candle. Seriously, something about that flickering flame helps remind me of the light of Love that's burning inside even if all I can feel is frustration and resentment bubbling up inside until I feel like I am going to burst with it.  So light a candle or find some other meaningful ritual, and let it be a reminder of the crown upon your tangled head.  Let it be a symbol of your status as Heart of Household.  Let it light up even the most ordinary of moments and make them sacred.