Sweet Sundays

On our latest library scavenging trip, Hank and I browsed the Christian books section looking for resources for a retreat we are leading. While I scanned the rows of all too familiar titles, my eyes landed on a tiny book by Kathleen Morris, titled "The Quotidian Mysteries." The title grabbed my attention and I was fairly certain I had heard of the little tome.

     I plopped it haphazardly atop the stack of new arrivals and best sellers I was checking out and Hank and I headed off to check out our precious finds.
     
     As I began to read the book later that week, I found that this book, while tiny, would not be a 'quick read.' Wooh. I had to read most of the sentences twice in order to digest them.
     Morris was a latecomer to Catholicism, happening upon the tradition in a rather unorthodox way. She describes watching her first wedding mass and the shock and awe she felt seeing the priest wash the dishes used for the communion.

    Morris describes the low place given to the monotaneous tasks like house work and child rearing. She talks about the cultural shifts that have landed Americans with the attitude that menial tasks are for the poor or uneducated and we were meant to achieve more or accomplish more with our lives.

   While I am only a few pages in, I have been deeply convicted. I hate laundry. I do not enjoy housework in general. In fact, I am perfectly happy letting my husband take out the trash AND wash the dishes. Lately Hank has started to ask that I perhaps take over dish duty a few nights a week. I knew the day would come but that didn't stop me from selfishly hoping I had married Mr. Clean and would never have to stoop to scrubbing dishes ever again. After all, Hank always washed dishes when we were dating... HAHAHA. And I was sweet, docile and always in the mood then too...

      Dishes just aren't romantic. I pictured married life filled with the smells of fresh bread, kitchens that magically absorbed the floury gunk that gets glued to the countertops, and mornings spent staring dreamily at one another over steaming cups of coffee and plates filled with perfectly cooked eggs and bacon. My dad asked me two months into our marriage whether I was still making breakfast for Hank as I had declared I would do. I admitted I had only done it once and had no great ambitions to make the dream a reality. Oatmeal and cereal seemed nearly as romantic when compared to the value of sleep.

     Hank is a servant and I can easily take advantage of that. We have certain tasks that we usually do. While he washes dishes, I dry them and put them away and put all the food away. While he takes out the trash, I try to keep laundry going. But sometimes I slack off and return to my college habits of waiting to wash clothes until I'm nearly out of underthings and then leaving said clothes in the dryer until they are wrinkled beyond belief.

    So, after feeling particularly convicted by Morris, I set out to catch up on housework today. I finally attacked the mold that had flourished on the ceiling in our bathroom, swept up the floors and even did TWO WHOLE LOADS of laundry. Someone say "Praise the Lord."

      And while I feel mighty good about my thirty minutes of labor, I know that this won't make me a better person or give me the perfect marriage. Within the daily doing of the tasks that must be done, there is a bit of transformation that I am hoping for. There is a slow learning (because I am not a quick learner when it comes to cleaning- ask my mother). It is in the menial and monotoneous, Morris says, that true thinking and inspiration occur. So I am going to try to 'lower myself' (HA!) to these tasks in the hopes that I might just learn to see the beauty in them.