October is a Good Month

October is a good month for our family. Cate & Telfer have birthdays, ending the Griffith family birthday run. Also Telfer has started a very lovely tradition of taking a week of vacation. The thought of traveling somewhere sounds horrible so we called it a staycation. And we had a lovely week last week. We did Fallish things like visiting the pumpkin patch and walking downtown for coffee in coats and blankets over the girls in the stroller. We also went to the Seattle Acquarium (Jane actually was with it a bit this time) and finally had our teeth cleaned (it's been so long). We had a date night that ended at the movies which defines the perfect evening for us. We also gifted each other one whole day to each other.

My day was Tuesday and I sort of desperately needed to get away. When I start feeling like an unpaid maid and say "Really?" a lot to Cate as in "You said you wanted an egg for breakfast and I made you an egg and now you are screaming? Really?" And then I almost, almost use a swear word. And that, my friends, is how I know I need a little break. I used a good chunk of my day to reread Kathleen Norris' little book: The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy & Women's Work. Don't worry, it's not all high-minded here. I also got my nails done, went for a walk, ate pastry, and had a massage.

But some needed reminders & beautiful words here:
Laundry, liturgy and women's work all serve to ground us in the world, and they need not grind us down. Our daily tasks, whether we perceive them as drudgery or essential, life-supporting work, do not define who we are as women or as human beings. But they have a considerable spiritual import, and their significance for Christian theology, the way they come together in the fabric of faith, is not often appreciated. But it is daily tasks, daily acts of love and worship that serve to remind us that the religion is not strictly an intellectual pursuit, and these days it is easy to lose sight of that as, like our society itself, churches are becoming more politicized and polarized. Christian faith is a way of life, not an impregnable fortress made up of ideas; not a philosophy; not a grocery list of beliefs.

And also Norris quotes Kierkegaard: Repetition is reality, and it is the seriousness of life...repetition is the daily bread which satisfies with benediction.