Spiritual Formation In My Mundane (Actual) Life

This essay was originally published in Missio Alliance’s 2024 Writing Fellows Cohort for the Summer Series.

How Cooking Dinner For My Family, Even When I Don’t Want To, Is Forming My Soul

“Everyone wants a revolution. No one wants to do the dishes.” This line from Tish Harrison Warren’s book Liturgy of the Ordinary popped into my head as I did the dishes for the 10th time that morning. At that moment, my life needed a revolution. I was sick of doing the dishes, loading the dishwasher, wiping counters, sweeping crumbs, and cooking.

My Struggle with the Ordinary

The last few months have been physically and emotionally exhausting. As a family, we were in a busy season filled with activities and people. Everything looked good on paper, but my heart and soul did not feel well. I could sense a growing emotional breakdown seeping into my body, as bitterness began to fill my soul. Resentment began to feel normal. I wouldn’t say I liked the dark places my soul seemed headed to, but I also felt powerless to stop it.

During this season, we navigated my husband’s job loss, constant hosting of company at home, and life’s general hustle and bustle. As the primary homemaker in our family, I bore the responsibilities of our family fully. Life as a homemaker served as the entree, with my side dish being my ongoing journey as a writer.

I found myself too emotionally overwhelmed to write. Writing requires thinking, processing, or seeing the physical space to put words down, but if I spent most of my time at a cutting board, how could I have written?

People constantly swirled around me, grabbing mugs, clinking spoons and plates, sugar crystals on the island, and dish towels tossed near the sink. Laundry piled in baskets, and a dozen pairs of shoes lay near the door. The clutter made it hard to breathe. I craved order in my life and soul.

My husband teases me that my masala chai tastes sweeter when it is made with love. I grudgingly agree. During this busy season, I found most of my meals bland and lacking warmth. I was being perfunctory in putting together sensible meals, but I also knew I was going through the motions. Honestly, I hated myself for it.

It is hard to make space for love when one is exhausted and still has to write a thousand words.

From Resentment to Reflection

In the midst of this frustration, I asked myself what I owed my family during this season. Would I continue to do what was expected grudgingly, or could I find a way to finish my work and and surrender it as an offering to the Lord?

Could my mundane, ordinary life be the formation my soul needs to become more like Christ?

In Liturgy of the Ordinary, Tish Harrison Warren writes poignantly of this endless struggle I was facing in my life:

“I was, and remain, a Christian who longs for revolution, for things to be made new and whole in beautiful and big ways. But I slowly see you can’t get to the revolution without learning to do the dishes. The kind of spiritual life and disciplines needed to sustain the Christian life are quiet, repetitive, and ordinary. I often want to skip the boring, daily stuff to get to the thrill of an edgy faith. But it’s in the dailiness of the Christian faith — the making the bed, the doing the dishes, the praying for our enemies, the reading the Bible, the quiet, the small — that God’s transformation takes root and grows.”¹

Like Harrison, I want my faith to spark, crackle, and pop. But I am overly weary of the ordinary stuff. I would rather spend my time pontificating so-called “great thoughts on God,” but this practice does not refine me to the depth that caring for my family does. Would I be able to find satisfaction and allow God to transform me as I disciplined myself in the ordinary Christian life?

I know that God shapes us in everything we do. We want Him to show up in a big way in our moments of suffering, but we often ignore Him in the struggles of daily life. Can I practice and strengthen my faith in life’s chopping, dicing, rinsing, and folding rhythms? Can I find my way to Christlikeness in the mundane? Was the spiritual already present in these ordinary things, and I had missed it?

Looking for Sacred in the Mundane

I began to wonder how things would shift if I stopped viewing my life as chaotic and cluttered, and instead saw it as brimming with vitality, richness, and relational abundance. What if instead of seeing my family as endlessly needy people, I saw consistent opportunities to love? What if I saw a sink full of dirty dishes as an abundance of food provided for those I love? When guests left my home, thanking me for caring for them, wasn’t that something to be grateful for? Feeling loved, needed, and appreciated is valuable in life. I was taking all of this for granted. Yes, there were many moments of weariness, but my life was also overflowing with abundance, and God was there all along.

We are often told to look for God in secret, silent spaces. In a social media, Christian influencer-filled world, we frequently hear of people finding God in the mountains, the oceans, or during candlelit quiet times. While it is true that one can see God in these experiences, we often fail to look for Him in our everyday lives. It’s not like God lives only in the mountains and the seas. God is with us everywhere, but we are so caught up in looking for Him in the incredible places that we miss Him in the mundane.

Whether folding the laundry, sweeping, dicing vegetables, or making chai, we practice God’s presence, growing attuned to God’s direction for our lives. During that process, we also grow more aware of God’s grace in and for our lives. We no longer control our transformation process but surrender ourselves to God, allowing Him to work in and through us for His purpose.

Brother Lawrence in the Monastery Kitchen

Recently, I have been reading the Brother Lawrence’s spiritual classic, The Practice of the Presence of God. This Carmelite monk’s life story has deeply convicted me as I have read about how Lawrence practiced the presence of God. Born Nicholas Herman in Lorraine, France, Herman lived a simple life as a peasant born into poverty, describing himself as “someone who broke everything.” He joined the military to eat and make a living, but was captured by enemies and released, only to be injured in another battle. Disabled and in chronic pain, Herman found work, but it did not last long.

Herman tried to be a religious hermit, but found the solitary life challenging. Finally, during middle age, he entered the monastery of the Barefoot Carmelites as a lay brother. He was put to work in the monastery kitchen, washing pots and pans, while constantly peeling potatoes. Although Herman deeply struggled with this mundane work, he also welcomed it, thinking it would benefit his soul.

Brother Lawrence needed help adapting to the Carmelite’s rigorous spiritual exercises. He did not understand theology or the various prayers of the Order. So, he decided to simply think of God during the appointed prayer times. Using this short method, he grew in God’s knowledge and love, practicing His presence every minute of every day.

“When he [Lawrence] had thus in prayer filled his mind with great sentiments of that Infinite Being, he went to his work appointed in the kitchen (for he was cook to the Society). There having first considered severally the things his office required, and when and how each thing was to be done, he spent all the intervals of his time, as well before as after his work, in prayer.”²

Lawrence was concerned with knowing God’s own self, in whatever he did.

“We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.”³

Over time, his behavior had a visible effect on the other Brothers in the monastery. Lawrence became calm, patient, devoted, and never in a hurry, doing everything with a tranquil spirit filled with great composure.

“The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer, and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the Blessed Sacrament.”⁴

Growing Convictions from a Life of Prayer

Reading Brother Lawrence’s conversations with God challenged me deeply to consider my own season of life. Lawrence’s life is an example of faithful following of God in the mundanity of one’s life, but in my own culture, a part of me resists following such an ordinary example. I view his life as that of a true spiritual leader, someone I aspire to be like, but it’s telling that Lawrence did not think of himself that way. Instead, his work was endless drudgery — washing pots, peeling potatoes, and constantly cooking. This is not the glamorous life I aspire to as a leader, if I’m honest.

If I’m honest with myself, I want to be something other than a cook and dish washer. I want to write great things and be applauded for them. I want to be appreciated and acknowledged for the work I do. I find it hard to be content with my current “ordinary” calling. I know that my everyday habits form me into the person I am; but were these habits forming or mal-forming me?

So often, we look at the ordinary as boring or meaningless. We want to do great things for God. We want the Revolution; we don’t want to do these dishes!

Brother Lawrence did not seek acknowledgment or applause. He sought to please God. He sought to glorify Christ in the mundane, everyday things of life. Lawrence’s service was to an audience of One. As I sit with his example, I read a different kind of joy found in Christ — utter confidence in the fullness of God’s presence. Brother Lawrence lived a full and satisfied life because he pursued ever deeper awareness of God’s presence, even in the kitchen.

If Brother Lawrence could live such a life of great joy in a monastery kitchen, washing pots and pans, could I live a similar life in my kitchen as well, making endless cups of masala chai for my family with great love?

Resources:

Liturgy of the Ordinary, Tish Harrison Warren

Brother Lawrence: The Practice of the Presence of God

Photo by Simona Sergi on Unsplash