http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/may/30.48.html
I love when she says, "Mothering teaches me that spirituality is not only about folding hands and closing eyes. As my daily life has become more physical and immediate, so has my experience of God." Disciplines of solitude, fasting, and study like those Foster's Celebration of Discipline promotes, a book I adore even if it is quite daunting, are simply unrealistic right now, a fact I appreciate being reminded. But that does not mean my spiritual life is going down the drain until Cora goes off to school (even then, there might be more young 'uns under foot.) Rather, I have never grown so much in my life as these last 11 months, though it has been through more unorthodox means, as Paris so accurately describes.
This idea of the sanctity of everyday living has been reinforced through my reading of Henri Nouwen's The Genesee Diary, an account of his seven months living in a Trappist monastery. Belying my expectations, he discovered that the contemplative life eluded him in this place where he anticipated it would come so naturally. He finds the manual labor irksome and continuously frets that he is not having as much quiet study time as he had planned. Through several diary entries, he writes:
"Why didn't I really enjoy the work, and why did I want to go back to my books to read about the spiritual life? Is selecting stones in the creek bed [for me: cooking, changing diapers] not the best spiritual life possible? Why do I always want to read about the spiritual life and not really live it?....
If I have learned anything this week, it is that there is a contemplative way of working that is more important for me than praying, reading, or singing. Most people think that you go to the monastery to pray. Well, I prayed more this week than before but also discovered that I have not learned yet to make the work of my hands into a prayer....
The spiritual life does not consist of any special thoughts, ideas or feelings but is contained in the most simple ordinary experiences of everyday living."
Yearning for extended study and prayer times such as my single friends are able to enjoy only leads to discontentment in my banal duties of cleaning, cooking, and caring for an energetic and attention-demanding 11-month old. Yet God is using these very things, these holy things, for my sanctification and spiritual development in this season of my life. I can and must daily exchange my restlessness for "greater" things for the quietness of a heart tuned to God's abundance surrounding my life call: "In quietness and trust is your strenth" (Is. 30:15). My daily chores of changing diapers and grocery shopping, when married with prayer and purposed for the glory of God, are equally as spiritual as that of monks...or seminary students.
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