Today
I came across Tish Harrison Warren's essay "Courage in the Ordinary,"
and her words spoke right into the beautiful chaos of my Nashville split-level.
Amidst my freelance hours on the laptop, getting up to comfort a toddler,
spooning yogurt and blueberries, wiping his nose, putting him down for a nap,
going back to my laptop, talking to my husband, washing a dish, answering an
email, I read this:
"A
prominent New Monasticism community house had a sign on the wall that famously
read 'Everyone wants a revolution. No one wants to do the dishes.' My life is
really rich in dirty dishes (and diapers) these days and really short in
revolutions ... But I’ve come to the point where I’m not sure anymore just what
God counts as radical ... this is what I need now: the courage to face an
ordinary day — an afternoon with a colicky baby where I’m probably going to
snap at my two-year old and get annoyed with my noisy neighbor — without
despair, the bravery it takes to believe that a small life is still a
meaningful life, and the grace to know that even when I’ve done nothing that is
powerful or bold or even interesting that the Lord notices me and is fond of
me.
"Whether
in Mongolia or Tennessee, the kind of 'giving my life away' that counts starts
with how I get up on a gray Tuesday morning. It never sells books. It won’t be
remembered. But it’s what makes a life. And who knows? Maybe, at the end of
days, a hurried prayer for an enemy, a passing kindness to a neighbor, or
budget planning on a boring Thursday will be the revolution stories of God
making all things new."
~words and image by Shanna Mallon
