Kathleen Norris on the transformative power of perfunctory work

This morning I'm revisiting this Kathleen Norris classic, thinking about it in terms of quotidian work that includes more than vacuuming a floor but also many manner of tasks. Sitting at a computer, for one.

"It is a paradox of human life that in worship, as in human love, it is in the routine and the everyday that we find the possibilities for the greatest transformation. Both worship and housework often seem perfunctory. And both, by the grace of God, may be anything but. At its Latin root, perfunctory means "to get through with," and we can easily see how liturgy, laundry and what has traditionally been conceived of as "women's work" can be done in that indifferent spirit. But the joke is on us: what we think we are only "getting through" has the power to change us, just as we have the power to transform what seems meaningless–the endless repetitions of a litany or the motions of vacuuming a floor. What we dread as mindless activity can free us, mind and heart, for the workings of the Holy Spirit, and repetitive  motions are conducive to devotions such as the Jesus Prayer or the rosary. Anything is fair game for prayer, anything or anyone who pops into the mind can be included."

–Kathleen Norris, from The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and "Women's Work"

~~~

[Photo: taken of my backyard ferns in their lush early summer phase.]

Words about hope and meaning from Anne Lamott

The first book I read by Anne Lamott was Traveling Mercies, which I wrote about in a post back in 2004. While it was dead serious, it was also hysterical. I was reading it as the same time as a friend of mine, and we would call each other and read excerpts over the phone, not being able to finish our sentences for laughing so hard.

I just finished her book, Stitches: A Handbook of Meaning, Hope, and Repair, which came out in 2013. I started it about a year ago but for some reason was interrupted and didn't finish. When I picked it up again a couple weeks ago, I started again from the beginning and was glad for the double dose of her thoughts.

Stitches has Lamott's humorous garnishes, but the tone is more serious than Traveling Mercies. The book is a gathering of "the observations that in troubled times help me find my way once again to what T. S. Eliot called 'the still point of the turning world.'" Her key metaphor is that of stitching together scraps, such as you do when making a quilt, to make something new, whole, and strong.

For your reading pleasure and overall encouragement in life, here are some excerpts:

“Most of us have figured out that we have to do what’s in front of us and keep doing it. We clean up beaches after oil spills. We rebuild whole towns after hurricanes and tornadoes. We return calls and library books. We get people water. Some of us even pray. Every time we choose the good action or response, the decent, the valuable, it builds, incrementally, to renewal, resurrection, the place of newness, freedom, justice. The equation is: life, death, resurrection, hope.”

~

“When you can step back at moments like these and see what is happening, when you watch people you love under fire or evaporating, you realize that the secret of life is patch patch patch. Thread your needle, make a knot, find one place on the other piece of torn cloth where you can make one stitch that will hold. And do it again. And again. And again.”

~

“Love bats last.”

~

“This is who I want to be in the world. This is who I think we’re supposed to be, people who help call forth human beings from deep inside hopelessness.”

~

“The search for meaning will fill you with a sense of meaning. Otherwise life passes by in about seven weeks, and if you are not paying attention and savoring it as it unfurls, you sill wake up one day in deep regret. It’s much better to wake up now in deep regret, desperate not to waste more of your life obsessing and striving for meaningless crap. Because you will have finally awakened.”

Any one of those excerpts, as well as any of several hundred other stand-alone great lines or paragraphs in the book are worthy of writing on an index card or printing out and cutting to the size of your back pocket to carry around for quick and frequent referral.

~~~

[Photo: taken in the stunning library at St. John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota.]

Book markings – messages from your past

Yesterday morning I read from Oswald Chamber's Utmost for his Highest and some underlining caught my attention. I've had this book for years, since my children were little, and have periodically cycled it in and out of my morning devotional reading. It's not a book I typically underline in – maybe because most of its lines are underline worthy and the whole volume would be a mass of ink – but there are the occasional stretches of blue or black ink under text or squiggles in the margins.

Here is what I found underlined in the reading for yesterday, June 8:

"It is a great deal better to fulfil the purpose of God in your life by discerning His will than to perform great acts of self-sacrifice.... Beware of harking back to what you were once when God wants you to be something you have never been."

I remember those words well but don't remember the time of underlining. I find myself wondering about who I was when I underlined that: what age; what decisions were face me; what soul chord those words touched.

Underlinings and margin notes we once make are like messages through time from a younger self to an older self. Reminders of thoughts that sparked imagination and growth. Flags to pay attention. Witnesses to past difficulties made easier by the encouragement of words. Markers of the journey.

This could be an interesting exercise. Pick from your bookshelf a devotional book or any book that's been especially meaningful to you and thumb through it until you find a note or underlining you made years ago. Try and remember when you made the marking, who you were then, and why those words were significant. Think about what message the words may be sending you today.

~~~

[Photo: taken of a clump of birch trees on my in-law's lawn; I love birch trees.]

Heschel on Sabbath rest and beauty

In Abraham Joshua Heschel’s The Sabbath, he uses a phrase big enough to hold the entire book, "The seventh day is like a palace in time." The word "palace" conveys the sense of beauty and delight that comprises this day of rest. Like a palace, the day is set apart from the surrounding days. Honored. Protected.

"How should we weigh the difference between the Sabbath and the other days of the week? When a day like Wednesday arrives, the hours are blank, and unless we lend significance to them, they remain without character. The hours of the seventh day are significant in themselves; their significance and beauty do not depend on any work, profit or progress we may achieve. They have the beauty of grandeur."

"In time" distinguishes the day from existing "in space." Our civilization is "a conquest of space,” wrote Heschel. We increase our space, enhance it by acquiring things to occupy it; by so doing we increase our power. But space is bought with time and time is the domain of God. On the Sabbath we admit the holiness of time and refrain from using it on things of space.

"What is so luminous about a day? What is so precious to captivate the hearts? It is because the seventh day is a mine where spirit's precious metal can be found with which to construct the palace in time, a dimension in which the human is at home with the divine; a dimension in which man aspires to approach the likeness of the divine."

Using poetic language and style, Heschel weaves together allegory, quotation, liturgy, midrash, exegesis, and reflection to construct a defense for the Jewish understanding of the Sabbath. Heschel's work is a classic authority on the topic of the Sabbath, quoted in most serious works on the subject, and has given this Christian Protestant woman much to ponder about the Sabbath and the architecture of time.

The honoring of the Sabbath – the second commandment – as described by Heschel has no hint of sacrifice, sternness, or restriction but instead rings of abundance, joy, delight, and beauty. No thought of work or worry shall touch the Sabbath. No collapsed exhaustion shall fill its hours. It is the feast of the week. The festival for which the six days of work prepare.

"The Sabbath is not for the sake of the weekdays; the weekdays are for the sake of Sabbath. It is not an interlude but the climax of living."

So what shall the day ahead hold? A long walk; worship; good simple food; silence; an afternoon nap; coffee with someone I love; no worries for tomorrow (always hard to do); music; time in the sunshine; a half-finished book. Your day ahead?

~~~

[Photo: taken at the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden last summer, on a Sunday outing.]

Excerpts from Finding Livelihood – Quote Pictures + Drawing

I’ve been having fun this week making quote images based on excerpts from Finding Livelihood. You’ll find them below in the picture carousel; scroll through to see all nine. (If you’re reading this post via email, you may have to click through to the online post in order to scroll through.)

What are they for? you may ask. They are, first and foremost, for your viewing pleasure, hopefully an aesthetically pleasing way for you to take in a good word in a short moment, like a quick bite of chocolate to get you through an afternoon.

They are also for you to use as content on your social media boards and walls. You can pin them to your Pinterest wall, or put them on Instagram, or use them on Facebook or Twitter or Ello or wherever you like to be.

To use the pictures, it’s best to go over to the Shareable quotes page where they are laid out separately and expandable with a click. Each has a “pin it” button in the top left corner to use for Pinterest. To use in other ways: 1) if you’re on a desktop, you can download and save the image by control-click on Mac or [is it right click?] on a PC; 2) if you’re on a smartphone, you can click and hold on the image to save it.

Of course, the quotes are also for spreading the word about Finding Livelihood. I’d be so happy to see them pop up here and there around the web that I'm going to hold a drawing on Friday, June 19 in celebration of your generosity. If you use one of the quotes on a social media site between now and then, or even if you just email one or more of the quote pictures to a friend, send me an email or leave a comment below to let me know (or tag me on Instagram if you use it there: @nancynordenson). On June 19 I’ll gather up all the names and randomly pick one to receive a free copy of Finding Livelihood plus a $50 gift card to Barnes & Noble.

Thank you for reading!

~~~

You can order Finding Livelihood from: 1) the publisher, Kalos Press; 2) Barnes & Noble; 3) Amazon; 4) Hearts & Minds Books; 5) Eighth Day Books; 6) me (let me know if you want it signed); or 7) any bookstore.

Mary Oliver for a Monday morning

From the "Afterword" of Mary Oliver's Blue Pastures comes a good model to take into the workweek:

"I go to my work, as I like to call it, being whimsical and serious at once."

~~~

[Photo: taken of Minneapolis' historic mill district on the Mississippi River from the vantage point of the Guthrie Theater.]

Resting from even the thought of work

From Heschel's, The Sabbath:

"Rest on the Sabbath as if all your work were done. Another interpretation: Rest even from the thought of labor."

Aiming for this today. You too?

~~~

[Photo: the bare branches of my backyard river birch, waiting hopefully for spring; currently, minus 8 degrees]