Blessing The Profane

We do a good job of keeping the sacred away from the profane, pretty much in every area of our lives. We have created systems and places that separate what is holy from what is not. We set aside special days for the holy, special places to be holy, special things that are holy, even special occupations in which people are expected to act holy.

In scrubbing out the holy and sacred from our ordinary lives, we’ve created an artificial dichotomy of existence. We’ve robbed our ordinary lives of the beauty of holiness, of the “special” in the sacred. We tease out what is sacred from the profane, and then wonder why our lives are scattered, distracted, sad, boring. We’ve wiped away the shining wonder of holiness, leaving ourselves with the flat affect of life without wonder, existence without the beauty of holiness.

When I use the word “profane”, I do not refer to what is cursed, or not good, but instead look to the Oxford definition of “profane”: “Relating or devoted to that which is not sacred or biblical; secular rather than religious.”

I want to ask, why? Why have we robbed ourselves of the daily blessing of celebrating all that is holy and wonderful in the mundane, ordinary things and places and times in our lives? What would be different if we were to bring the sacred back into the mundane? the holy back into the ordinariness of our days?

Dream with me awhile:

What if, in preparing your morning coffee, you were to imbue the process with a sacred acknowledgment of what this process means for you… the grinding of the beans, the measuring out of just-enough water. What if you were to close your eyes and think about just how much you enjoy that first sip?..how wonderful that aroma is to your nostrils and how it invigorates your mind toward a new day?

What if, in doing that 164,208th load of laundry, you were to express gratitude for the clothing you own? Or send up a quick prayer of thanksgiving for the child or spouse who would be wearing clean socks tomorrow?.. asking for blessing upon them as they run, or jump, or clock in another day at work? What if, in picking up the kids’ toys one, more exhausted time, you were to think upon the holy and sacred wonder of having children in the first place? the great blessing that is denied to so many others? How very special this child (even the messy one!) is?

The attention to the sanctity of an act can elevate the entire process to one of sacrament - an act that blesses another with grace, and a solemn expression of love made real.

I don’t come by this wisdom lightly; it was a hard-fought and difficult battle, this encircling the mundane in my life with grace. It wasn’t an easy battle, by any stretch. I had a husband who was in the midst of growing a business; two daughters who were growing up and active and involved in life who needed love and care and attention. I was working full time as a nursing home administrator, and going to school at night. My marriage was struggling (as they are wont to do in the midst of our mundane lives), my father had just passed away and I was caring for a grieving mother. The burden of cooking daily meals and folding laundry for people I believed didn’t appreciate all my hard work was crushing, and I was drowning is self-pity and apathy. Each day brought drudgery, heart-ache and sorrow. Who cared if there were clean socks? Who cared about yet another meal, or the dust on the furniture, or the dirt on the floors? I surely didn’t.

And then I read a lovely little book by Kathleen Norris: The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and “Women’s Work”.[1] And it changed my life. Within this small little book, barely 85 pages long, Ms. Norris eloquently (and as only a born-poet can) expressed the deeply significant holiness that is attendant to each and every task we set our minds to; it is the intention of the thing, not necessarily the result. She spoke of the ability to contemplate the grandeur of the universe in the doing of repetitive tasks; the miracle of making dirty things clean; the wonder of a soap bubble in a sink of dirty dishes, reflecting prisms of light within the mystery of the benediction of service in the name of love. Her wisdom fed my soul.

From that time on, I worked hard at making the mundane, holy; the ordinary, divine; and I do not exaggerate when I say it helped to rescue my marriage, blessed my children, and saved my life. It wasn’t always easy, but I quickly noted a change in my heart, a renewal of vision, a new sense of blessed purpose. Bringing the sacred into the mundane, mixing the holy and profane was an alchemy of the highest order - and I never looked back.

To imbue our ordinary days with the wonder of the holiness of things is to rescue us from the dreary, to bring technicolor into the black and white of the “normal”, to elevate all acts - no matter how small or insignificant - into a sacrament of blessing.

I don’t believe God ever intended us to live apart from the holy; after all, He IS the Holy One, and when we are connected to Him, we can then see the great wonder and blessing that He is. We recognize the holy in all things, and it is a wonderful thing.

It puts me in mind of Genesis: “And God looked upon all that He had made, and it was very good”. (Genesis 1:31).

To bring all things together, the holy and profane, is very good indeed.

[1] The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and “Women’s Work”; Kathleen Norris. Paulist Press: New York. 1998.