There are moments in life when holiness sneaks up on you. Sometimes it’s in the hush of the church before morning prayer, or in the solemn beauty of a Bach chorale. And sometimes — heaven help us — it’s when you are knee-deep in laundry that appears to have bred in the night.
Having spent a couple weeks in hospital, I returned home, not remembering the number of household chores that I had planned on doing the day I got admitted. I came home in particular to a rather large pils of laundry in need of my immediate attention.
I don’t know what kind of metaphysical mischief goes on inside laundry hampers, but I am convinced they are portals to a parallel dimension where unmatched socks conspire, tea towels multiply, and every t-shirt you own takes on the texture of a medieval penance garment. Somewhere, the Psalmist is sighing, “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord” — while holding a damp towel.
Folding laundry, for me, has become a kind of psalmody. There’s rhythm to it, a gentle repetition, like chanting. You lift, you smooth, you fold, you stack. (And if you’re feeling especially pious, you roll the socks together instead of stuffing one into the other like a wrestling match.) Each motion becomes a stanza in the quiet liturgy of daily life.
If you listen closely, there’s a hymn in the background hum of the dryer. The sheets billowing in the breeze outside sound suspiciously like the Magnificat. Even the stubbornness of a fitted sheet can feel like an opportunity for sanctification — “My grace is sufficient for you,” says the Lord, as you attempt to align the elastic corners for the twelfth time.
The Psalms, of course, are filled with the full range of human emotion — praise, complaint, thanksgiving, lament. Laundry folding, oddly enough, is much the same. There are moments of despair (“How long, O Lord, shall the socks be mismatched?”), of confession (“I will never again wash that red towel with the white shirts”), and of praise (“Bless the Lord, O my soul — this towel actually smells like lavender!”).
Perhaps this is what monastic life has always understood — that ordinary tasks, done attentively and with gratitude, are prayers in motion. The hum of the dryer becomes a kind of Amen, a soft punctuation at the end of the day’s efforts.
So the next time you’re staring down Mount Laundry, remember: you are standing on holy ground (albeit covered in lint). The sacred doesn’t only dwell in stained glass and sanctuaries; sometimes it hides in sock drawers and laundry baskets. And if you find yourself grumbling, muttering, or even laughing in the process — well, that too is prayer. After all, the Psalms were never meant to be tidy.
Amen — and pass the fabric softener.
A Prayer for the Folding of Laundry
Gracious God,
you who clothe the lilies of the field
and number even the socks that go astray —
grant me patience and humour as I face this basket once more.
Bless the shirts that will soon shoulder the work of the day,
the towels that will dry faces fresh from sleep,
the sheets that will cradle tired bodies at day’s end.
May each folded piece become a quiet act of love,
a soft sacrament of care in the ordinary rhythm of living.
Forgive me when I grumble at the endlessness of it all,
when I forget that holiness hides in the humdrum,
and sanctity may be found between spin cycle and rinse.
Teach me to see this humble task as prayer in motion—
a small offering of order amid the world’s wrinkles.
And when the last item is folded and the basket stands empty,
remind me that resurrection always follows the wash.
In the name of Christ,
who wrapped himself in our humanity
and left the linens folded neatly behind him at Easter morn.
Amen.