Sanctifying the Ordinary

In the last century, the Second Vatican Council affirmed household and general labor as a way to serve God.*

Think about that. Sanctifying the ordinary is a profound practice yet does not seem to hold up to the “holiness” of other practices such as Bible Study, taking part in communion or attending a church service. Yet the ordinary is the majority of our lives. To be unaware of the holiness of the mundane can only impede our spirituality. If God was only in the extraordinary moments of life, we would be a far more desperate and spiritually hungry people. And maybe that’s why some of us are famished – we fail to see God in the everyday tasks of our life.

The ordinary…is often the most significant for faith. Most of the time we miss it. It takes discipline to notice the distinctiveness of the ordinary. Moreover, to notice the theological nature of the ordinary, to connect the ordinary to the conviction of religious tradition, is even harder. It requires a particular kind of theological vision and valuing of the ordinary.

A monastic view of spirituality leads us to think that the disciplines practiced by priests, nuns and monks are the “higher order” of worship. Who can argue that self-denial, acts of service to others, renouncing worldly values, etc. are not the idealistic or even "correct" way of practicing our spirituality? To look at Jesus’ life is to see some of the hallmarks of monasticism. “If regarded from the right angle, a parent’s daily life has an oddly haunting resemblance. Unbidden and unexpected, opportunity arises for a similar kind of disciplined religiosity: ‘A full night’s sleep, time to oneself, the freedom to come and go as one pleases – all this must be given up…Huge chunks of life are laid down at the behest of infants. And then, later, parents must let go.’ Here, in a nutshell, is the life span and extremes of child rearing: loving, losing, and letting go.” The author states, “To see this daily regimen of care, restraint, self-extension, and craziness as part of a larger practice of faith, a means of learning patience, charity, endurance in fidelity, receptivity to the other, long suffering, and humility, sanctioned the work that filled my life and placed it in a new light."

The practice of parenting then becomes a practice in spirituality. While we give everything we have and who we are to these children of ours, they in turn help to shape us. Parenting is formative for both sides. Marriage and children are every bit as much a “school for character” or training ground for virtue as the monastery.

Parenting is about more than raising children in faith. It has the potential to foster religious transformation in the one who attempts such care. Engaging in the practice of parenting gives rise to new knowledge and a new way of being, not in sacred time and space but in the very concrete minutiae of life in all its messiness.

Is tending to your family a religious practice for you? We all practice our faith in various manners and traditions. Let us become more aware of our "faith acts" in our daily life and therefore become more aware of God and His presence.

When...our natural reason...takes a look at married life, she turns up her nose and says, 'Alas, must I rock the baby, wash its diapers, make its bed, smell its stench, stay up nights with it, take care of it when it cries, heal its rashes and sores, and on top of that care for my wife, provide for her, labor at my trade, take care of this and take care of that, do this and do that, endure this and endure that, and whatever else of bitterness and drudgery married life involves? What, should I make such a prisoner of myself [one hears echoes here of the Greek view of the body as a prison of the rational mind and soul]?

What then does Christian faith say to this? It opens its eyes, looks upon all these insignificant, distasteful, and despised duties in the Spirit, and is aware that they are all adorned with divine approval as with the costliest gold and jewels...I confess to thee that I am not worthy to rock the little babe or wash its diapers, or to be entrusted with the care of the child and its mother....O how gladly will I do so, though the duties should be even more insignificant and despised. Neither frost nor heat, neither drudgery or labor, will distress or dissuade me, for I am certain that it is thus pleasing in [God's] sight.

~Martin Luther

Crystal

*All text in green is quoted from the second chapter of In the Midst of Chaos by Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore