Where Life Does Not Surprise Us

January 17, 2023

Beloved:
          I’m confused enough these days without the weather being wacky.  This morning’s breeze felt springy, not wintry like January air is supposed to feel.  I wore too warm a coat to walk Birdy this morning.  I positively hate being sweaty in a coat.  That said, it's a beautiful day and I hope you can get outside a bit.
          Inside there’s plenty to keep me busy.  Paying bills and writing emails.  Phone calls and laundry.  Books to read and notes to write and sermons to plan.  Boxes to unpack and things to put away.  The duties of the day are the makings of a life, I suppose.  What we pour ourselves into today we live off of tomorrow.  I want to live in peace, so I am doing what I can to make a peaceful home, to build a peaceful existence.  Restoration, I suppose, via orderliness, dependability, and trust.  Save a burst pipe or a downed tree, home is where life does not surprise us, where we can truly let down our guard and, as I am learning to learn, rest.  
In her little book The Quotidian Mysteries:  Laundry, Liturgy and “Women’s Work," Kathleen Norris wrote about the possibility of dragging order out of chaos via the daily tasks required for human existence:  meals, laundry, caring for animals, caring for a home.
          Of course I’m wise to the fact that this world is full of tragedy and terror.  Not everything will be resolved by humans simply caring for the ordinary duties of their lives.  But it would be an interesting experiment for everyone to go home, make their beds and prepare their own supper, wash their own dishes afterward and then go to bed early.  No new chaos inflicted.  No new trouble made.  Each one keeping their own backyard tidy.  Who knows what order might naturally result?  World peace aside, the quotidian routine is about all I can manage these days, and the mystery of its grace is seeping into me.  Grace that seeps into me like breath, reminding me that I’m alive and moving, creeping forward, but moving all the same, into another day of peace.

~ peace & prayers,
pastor annette

*quotidian ~ occurring every day; belonging to every day, commonplace, ordinary