Blessed Mundanity

Finished my first class. Irwin is obviously passionate about the subject, so I'm psyched. One highlight from his lecture was his material on how the cosmos (the world, creation, the earth) enters into liturgy. He pointed out that liturgy has always used elements of the cosmos in worship to God. He is wary of a oversacralized liturgy--a liturgy that becomes too detached from creation. He reminds that one of the main reasons we use water in baptism is because water means life; what better element to use during a celebration of rebirth than that element which gives life (not to mention water comes forth at the first birth as well)?

In my reading, I was struck with Aidan Kavanaugh's observation that in the past, poverty was a PREREQUISITE to faith. You could not be baptized into faith unless you took a vow of poverty. Period. You'll find this in Basil. Since then, poverty has become reserved for mendicants and others ordained for ministry.

Way led onto way in my thoughts, and I arrived at the notion of how utterly mundane holy living is. There may be times of heroicism for the awake saint, but by and large she goes about her days in monotony: rising early, praying, doing hard work ("sleep the sleep of hard work," someone said), eating sensibly, and going to sleep at an hour that will allow her to do it all again tomorrow. This kind of monotonous everyday slog is the real stuff--the guts--of the Christian life, whether we like it or not. Let's face it: sin is often a lot more exciting than holy living.

Even so, I want to argue that we all have a certain meaning quotient that we must meet to feel human. It's simply in the nature of who we are. Here's the thing. Holy living requires that we seek meaning by being attentive and creative. In the mundanity of wholesomeness, we must be on the lookout for what God has to show us. We must be active in our search, otherwise we will go without the sustenance of meaning.

The temptation is to seek meaning in other ways, or not even meaning but diversions from the reality that we are bereft of meaning. We resort to watching mindless TV, eating badly, addictive behavior, and various other pathologies.

So I want to cultivate a fondness for blessed mundanity. I want to invite mundanity willingly, even adoringly. I say "blessed" because it is this mundanity that can be a platform from which to look out on the terrain of our lives (our work, our families, etc.) and the world around us to see what there is to see--to find the meaning that God offers for those with eyes to see and ears to hear.