There is a particular moment in adult life when one realizes that the laundry is never actually finished.
This can be quite a theological crisis.
You wash it. You dry it. You fold it. You put it away. You stand for perhaps eleven triumphant minutes before an empty laundry basket, feeling that civilization has been restored and that your affairs are finally in order.
Then you change your socks.
And it begins again.
Much of life is like this.
The dishes return.
The garbage fills.
The lawn grows.
The email inbox reproduces overnight by some mysterious process that science has not yet adequately explained.
The groceries we purchased on Thursday have somehow disappeared by Tuesday, despite the fact that we distinctly remember spending enough money on them to provision a small monastery through Lent.
And morning comes again.
The alarm rings again.
Breakfast needs making again.
Someone needs listening to again.
Someone needs forgiving again.
We need praying for again.
Ordinary Time is wonderfully suited to this sort of life because Ordinary Time is not terribly interested in fireworks.
It is interested in faithfulness.
The Spiritual Life Is Surprisingly Repetitive
We sometimes imagine that spiritual maturity consists of accumulating increasingly dramatic experiences of God.
There may indeed be dramatic moments.
There are mountaintops.
There are conversions.
There are moments when Scripture suddenly opens before us and we know, with startling clarity, that God has spoken.
There are moments at the altar when grace feels almost tangible.
Treasure them.
But most Christian life does not happen there.
Most Christian life happens on Tuesday.
And then, rather inconveniently, it happens again on Wednesday.
Jesus understood this.
He taught his disciples to pray for daily bread.
Not lifetime bread.
Not a warehouse full of bread sufficient to guarantee that we would never again have to depend upon anybody.
Daily bread.
Enough grace for today.
Tomorrow we ask again.
There is something wonderfully humbling about that.
We would prefer spiritual achievement.
God seems rather fond of spiritual dependence.
Again Is Not the Same as Failure
Sometimes we become discouraged because we find ourselves dealing with something we thought we had already dealt with.
The worry returns.
The impatience returns.
The grief returns.
The temptation returns.
The difficult relationship remains difficult.
We think, “Surely I should be past this by now.”
Perhaps.
But perhaps holiness is not always about getting past things.
Sometimes holiness is learning how to meet the same thing differently.
You may encounter the same irritating person for the forty-seventh time, but perhaps this time you listen a little longer.
You may face the same anxiety, but perhaps this time you remember to pray before allowing your imagination to organize the apocalypse.
You may carry the same grief, but discover that today you can carry it without believing that grief is all you carry.
Grace often works through repetition.
Not because God has run out of ideas.
Because love requires practice.
The Saints Had Tuesdays Too
As All Saints approaches, the Church begins turning our attention toward those countless women and men whose lives have borne witness to Christ.
We often remember them at their most impressive.
We remember Francis embracing poverty.
We remember Teresa praying.
We remember Julian contemplating divine love.
We remember courageous martyrs, tireless missionaries, faithful reformers and extraordinary servants.
We seldom imagine them looking for a missing sock.
But surely they did the equivalent.
They had ordinary mornings.
They had chores.
They became tired.
They probably had conversations they wished they had handled differently.
They woke up occasionally in bad moods.
Some of them undoubtedly sat through meetings that could have been letters.
They became holy not because every moment of their lives was extraordinary.
They became holy because they kept giving their ordinary moments to God.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Faithfulness Is Built from Small Returns
There is a beautiful rhythm at the heart of Christian worship.
We return.
Sunday comes and we gather again.
We hear Scripture again.
We confess again.
We pray again.
We come to the table again.
Bread.
Wine.
Thanksgiving.
Grace.
And then we are sent back into the world where, quite predictably, somebody has left dishes in the sink.
This is not an interruption of the spiritual life.
This is the spiritual life.
The Eucharist teaches us to recognize what God is doing everywhere else.
Ordinary things are taken.
Blessed.
Broken.
Shared.
And suddenly we begin to suspect that God has been working with ordinary things all along.
Including us.
Perhaps Holiness Looks Like Showing Up
There are days when faith feels strong.
There are days when prayer seems natural.
There are days when generosity comes easily and patience seems almost effortless.
Enjoy those days.
There are others when prayer feels like pushing a wheelbarrow uphill through wet cement.
There are mornings when loving one’s neighbour seems an admirable Christian principle best attempted by somebody else.
There are days when the most spiritually mature thing we manage is simply to show up.
But showing up matters.
Praying again matters.
Forgiving again matters.
Beginning again matters.
Returning to kindness matters.
Returning to hope matters.
Returning to Christ matters.
Perhaps this is one of the great secrets of the saints.
They were not people who never wandered.
They were people who learned the road home.
God Is in the Again
So tomorrow morning the kettle will boil again.
The bed will need making again.
The dog will need walking again.
The church doors will need unlocking again.
Someone will need encouragement again.
Someone will need mercy again.
And somewhere, inevitably, another basket of laundry will appear.
Do not despise these repetitions.
Grace may be hiding among them.
Because the Kingdom of God is not built only through spectacular acts of courage.
Sometimes it is built by making breakfast.
Sometimes by answering the telephone.
Sometimes by keeping a promise.
Sometimes by saying, “I forgive you.”
Sometimes by saying, “I’m sorry.”
Sometimes by getting up tomorrow morning and deciding, once again, to live as though love really is the deepest truth about the universe.
The saints did not become saints in a single magnificent afternoon.
They became saints through thousands of ordinary mornings offered to God.
And perhaps that is encouraging.
Because tomorrow morning is coming.
And by the grace of God, we get to try again.
Holiness may be less about doing something extraordinary once, and more about offering the ordinary to God again and again.
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A Prayer for Ordinary Faithfulness
Faithful God,
meet me again in the ordinary things.
When the work is repetitive,
when prayer feels familiar,
when yesterday’s worries return
and today’s responsibilities seem remarkably similar to yesterday’s,
help me not to despise the ordinary.
Give me grace to begin again,
patience to love again,
courage to forgive again,
and faith to trust you again.
Take the small things I offer today
and make them holy through your love.
Teach me the quiet faithfulness of the saints,
until all my ordinary days
become an offering of praise.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
A wonderful reminder of the need for faithfulness in the small things and in the repetitive concerns of life. I needed this reminder today.