The following column appeared in the Green Bay Press-Gazette on July 22, 2011.
Summer offers us time to get away for a spiritual retreat at a remote camp or conference center. I remember going to the mountains of North Carolina a few summers ago to spend a week at a United Methodist church camp. It was a wonderful time of spiritual reflection.
However, this summer I have no such plans. Perhaps you do not either. You and I will go through our daily routines from week to week. Even so, is there the possibility of a spiritual experience for us?
It has been interesting to me that some recent spiritual writing has centered on what we might call the spirituality of the mundane. It is suggested that we do not need to travel great distances, spend a lot of money and learn esoteric techniques to advance in the spiritual life.
Author and poet Kathleen Norris speaks of the quotidian mysteries of doing laundry, baking bread and housecleaning. Episcopal priest and theologian Barbara Brown Taylor includes among the disciplines such things as digging in the garden, going through the checkout at the grocery store, and walking barefoot.
So what can we make of these dog days of summer? We regularly perform menial tasks such as mowing the lawn, washing the car and watering the plants. You can add to the list. Is there really the possibility of spiritual growth in any of this?
There is if we will approach menial matters with some awareness rather than merely going through the motions. Norris reminds us that the word “menial” derives from a word that connotes family and household ties, thus connections. Taylor’s perspective is that to become more spiritual we must become more fully human, for there is no way to God apart from real life in the real world.
We need to ask some simple questions in the mundane activities that fill our days. How does this activity connect me to the earth, to my fellow human beings and to God? What does this activity teach me about my own humanness?
Let me give an example. On two occasions this summer I cleaned the gutters on my house. I saw my neighbors on their ladders and I realized this was a shared experience. I felt fortunate to have a roof over my head and to be able-bodied enough to climb a ladder. I was thankful for the rains and the shade provided by the trees. I especially liked the sound of water rushing through the downspout after I removed the blockage. Water flowed where it belonged, in the earth. As I pulled handfuls of seeds from the gutter—helicopter seeds from maple trees and the white tufts of cottonwood seeds—it brought to mind the fecundity of nature and the abundance of God. I dumped the seeds in the woods because seeds too belong in the earth, not in rain gutters.
Whenever I see plants actually growing in gutters on the roof’s edge, it gives me pause. I wonder if I am growing where I belong.
