Column: Small acts, from housekeeping to work to family, are what bind us together
“At a certain level housekeeping is a regime of small kindnesses, which taken together make the world salubrious, savory and warm. I think of the acts of comfort offered and received within a household as precisely sacramental. It is the sad tendency of domesticity, as of pity, to contract and of grace to decay into rigor and peace into tedium. Still, it should be clear why I find the HomeStead Act the most poetic piece of legislation since Deuteronomy, which it resembles.” — Marilynne Robinson, "When I Was a Child I Read Books"
Full disclosure: I had to look up the word salubrious. It means favorable to the health of mind or body.
I came upon it reading Robinson's book on a day full of the best housekeeping tasks. I filled bird feeders and put away winter coats. I arranged lodging for my dog next week when I'm away. I folded warm sheets from the dryer and emptied the dishwasher.
Later, I get to plant gladiolas and zinnias and go to the grocery story around the corner. Remembering all the while Robinson's advice to take none of it for granted, instead savoring every salubrious moment, treating every tiny task as a sacred kindness, in its giving as well as its reception.
I find it a profound comfort to contemplate all the people the world over in any given moment busy at their own quotidian routines. In their own spot upon the planet making tea, scrubbing the porch, or selling vegetables. They are handling the toys and tools and paperwork by which everything gets done.
Bread gets baked. Butter and jam are set out on the table. Toys and tools are taken down, used, and put away, repaired and replaced. Paperwork, oh the paper work, passing through a thousand hands to become the rules by which we live together. Babies get rocked and put down for their naps, lest supper might never get started.
Day after day after day these small acts bind us together as human beings. In their exchange, we honor one another's most humble needs and our most humble selves, leaving the space between us salubrious, savory and warm. I pray this day finds your hands at good work and your hearts at good grace.
Peace & prayers, Pastor Annette
Annette Hill Briggs is pastor at University Baptist Church in Bloomington.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Column: Pastor contemplates how tiny tasks are a sacred kindness
