Striking Ordinariness

There was a moment, tonight, when I was sitting with my friend in our Fellowship, and he kicked his cup of coffee by accident. It spilled over the floor, and very quickly I got up, went to the kitchen, got some towels, came back, and cleaned it up while our meeting continued.

There was something about that activity, though, that was so... so precious.

Maybe this sounds crazy, but it was perfect. Beautiful. There was no thought involved. I wasn't angry with him because he had spilled his coffee, and I wasn't trying to 'prove' myself with service by cleaning up after him. I just enjoyed the act of cleaning up the coffee, wiping until it had been sopped up by the towels and then disposing of them properly.

I wish all things, everything, could be like that.

I think of the Zen saying "chop wood, carry water"... and how wonderful just the simple acts in life are. I remember, a while back, when I discovered how wonderful it was to do the dishes, to feel the warm and hot and soapy water, to learn how to apply just the right amount of pressure to scrape the pan without hurting it, smelling the water and the soap scents, feeling the little aches in my feet and back... folding laundry while it's still warm... bathing a dog.

So much of life now, it seems, is lived in the head. We spend time thinking. We spend time talking. Less and less do we go about simple daily tasks with simple daily rewards to them, like making the bed, taking out the garbage. We don't do these things any more, really.

The more I think about it, though, it's precisely in those things that the joy lies. It always has been that way; I just never looked for it.

So here's my dream: to have a job I leave at work. No working my job at home.

To have a garden to tend, dirt for my fingers to dig in.

A kitchen where food is prepared, cooked, recycled.

To make beds, clean dishes, fold warm laundry. Listen to the radio.

Clean up coffee spills.

Think less about complicated things. Center my mind on the simpler bits of living, like food.

I'm tired of high-falutin'.

I want to sweep.