Everyday routines such as washing dishes are not thought of as ‘holy’ – but doing them well can have a long-term effect on others

Dear Friends
What are you up to this month? Possibly not much. Our routine is in order. The to-do-list is hung on the fridge to remind us of our accomplishments. Some of us may have weeks filled with regular appointments that keep us out and about a lot. Or we may be trying to establish a new order following some disruptive days or weeks.
Living into routines, re-establishing routines, or simply living with chaos is challenging. Whatever our days hold, there are tasks that must be completed. Doing laundry, delivering and collecting children, shopping for food and preparing food, tending to gardens etc.
In ‘An Altar in the World’ Barbara Brown Taylor writes about the routines of life: ‘To make bread, to dig in the earth, to feed an animal or cook for a stranger – these activities require no extensive commentary, no lucid theology. All they require is someone willing to bend, reach, chop, stir. Most of these tasks are so full of pleasure that there is no need to complicate things by calling them holy.
And yet these are the same activities that change lives, sometimes all at once and sometimes more slowly, the way dripping water changes stone.’ These ordinary activities in which we engage for those we love or for strangers can change lives, as water transforms stones. When we make a meal for a refugee, a life is changed. When we listen to someone on the phone who expresses distress, a life is changed. When we regularly show up for our children, lives are changed. They are ‘simple’ things to do – Brown Taylor says we don’t call them ‘holy’ – and yet they bring love and hope to those with whom we share those tasks. Brother Lawrence, a 17th century monk, found God in tasks like doing the dishes so there is a sense in which, based on his ideas, we can argue
that all we do is ‘holy’.
There are lots of challenges in our world right now, so we can take encouragement from the reminder that if we keep doing these basic things, they make a difference and change lives. In them, God’s presence can be known. Through them, change happens. Maybe we only change the life of one person by our consistent caring, but that changed person will impact other lives and bring positive change to others. Love and healing and peace multiply.

Brown Taylor continues: ‘Bodily practices remind the willing that faith is a way of life’. Brother Lawrence, I think, would affirm this statement. We know from Jesus that love is action not just emotion. Living a life of faith is about the work we do to create an environment of shalom and hope.
You do this each and every day. Keep up the good work. We may not see the stone transform, but our drips of love make a difference.

Peace, Martha and David