TBR: Quotidian Mysteries
Today’s book is The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and "Women’s Work," by Kathleen Norris. It’s a small book, 4" x 7", with only about 90 pages, and is the text of a lecture that Norris gave, the 1998 Madeleva Lecture in Spirituality. Based on the list of previous title in the series, it appears the lectures always focus on women and spirituality.
I requested the book because I read about it (can’t remember where, sorry), and the title intriged me. And I often feel overwhelmed by the everyday (which is what both "quotidian" and "mundane" mean), so I thought it might be helpful.
Overall, I can’t say I found the book illuminating. Norris waxes enthusiastic about the possibility of finding spirituality in the midst of ordinary chaos, and praises "those who manage to find God in a life filled with noise, the demands of other people and relentless daily duties that can consume the self" but fails to provide any guidance for how to do so. (Except for a nagging suggestion that "young parents juggling child-rearing and making a living" should, "if they are wise,… treasure the rare moments of solitude and silence that come their way, and use them not to escape, to distract themselves with television and the like.")
Norris writes that she knew "since high school, that whatever I was destined for, it was not motherhood." And she is best known for her book about life as an oblate in a monastery. I found her cheerleading for the joys of the quotidian a little bit like someone who hikes unencumbered up a mountain while I am carrying a huge pack. When I trip in the mud and beg for help, she tells me, oh no, my journey will be so much more impressive than hers for having carried the pack. Perhaps, but I’m not sure I’m going to make it at all.
Norris is at her best when she shares her enthusiasm for laundry (especially when hung on a line) and daily liturgies, and how she uses them to bring herself out of terrible blue funks (although she uses the archaic word "acedia" instead of admitting to depression.). And I’m happy to have read the book if only for her discussion of collecting manna as the prototypical daily chore. (As you may remember, the Torah says that God provided manna each day and the Israelites had to collect it each morning. There was no point in collecting extra so you wouldn’t have to do it the next day, because except for the double portion provided for Shabbat, it all went bad overnight.)
