Paradoxically, I find myself getting irritable when the stuff of life feels too mundane. You know: the endless round of eating, and cleaning, and laundering, and clearing. Too much of that - and a concurrent lack of adventure and accomplishment - and I tend to feel smothered, hemmed in.
If you have any sense of discernment or insight, you may note that I have two children and that the life of any parent - especially, even in this day and age, a female parent - is particularly remarkable for its daily round of repeated and, let's face it, mostly mundane tasks.
I'll be honest, this is what put me off the idea of parenting for the first eight years of marriage. I'd seen parenting up close and personal - I had, after all, two of my own - and the adventure of the whole shebang short of escaped me. Indeed, when people tried to add value to the task of mothering (fathering seemed to have a value all of its own, given the Father heart of God, and all) to me it only added to its reduction. They did this by speaking as though to elevate the grand task of raising these little humans, as though all the value was in them, after all. Somehow the mother figure still remained a little to one side, sort of in sepia while the children were in full colour, and the husband sparkled in some other realm.
In spite of the fact that launching into motherhood felt risky in ways I had no words for (and in ways that had nothing to do with the inherently risky job of actually birthing and, in my case, adopting babies), I nevertheless found myself there. I spent my thirties shuttling between the miasma of family life - broken nights, and nappies, and teething toddlers, and looks of disbelief shared over hurried meals with my loved one, as yet another drink was spilled, or we rallied over another small domestic catastrophe - and the relative peace of travelling around Africa as part of my job, visiting small teams in places with or without the luxuries of electricity and running water. I'll leave you to guess which felt easier.
All this is by way of introduction. It will not be lost on you, dear reader, that a pandemic-induced lockdown necessitates a fair amount of mundane repetition. Today was Day 22: we get up, we do family life, we fit in a few snatches of work here and there, we make meals, we wash dishes, we dirty them again. We do all this within the four fair walls of our home, making beds and sleeping in them, day after endless day. Isabel Allende writes of being 'crushed by the weight of the familiar, its routines and limitations.' That sounds like one very reasonable way to describe lockdown life.
What does it all mean, if anything?
Is it enough to believe that all this is worthwhile because we are helping to form the little people in our care? (It could be that your answer to that question depends on where you fall on the Enneagram. I'd be interested to think more about that.) Not to negate the evident value of raising the next generation, I'd like to suggest that in the midst of the mundane round of repeated parenting tasks, there is a sort of formation that happens in us adult people too.
What if we are learning how to give ourselves away?
In around the 4th Century, there was a bit of a trend for those who considered themselves serious about the Christian life to head out into the desert to live as hermits, or in loosely connected communities. Imagine it: they lived in earth-walled caves they called 'cells' and there wasn't a whole lot to do out there in the desert. The days all looked pretty much the same - a bit of cooking, a bit of tidying up (all that sweeping, imagine the dust!), maybe a walk. And a lot of thinking, considering life and becoming aware of all the uncomfortable truths about oneself that just sort of rose to the surface in the quiet of a place like that. We take ourselves with us, whether to the desert or to the boardroom.
There was one desert father known as Abba Moses. People sought him out for advice and wise counsel because he was thought of as a wise old guy. So one day, a younger man who had gone out into the desert to live a meaningful life, away from the distractions of ordinary life back at home in the city, asked him what he needed to do to be a true follower of 'The Way.' I'm guessing he wanted some tough adventure that would lead him on the path of significance. And Abba Moses told him to go back to his cell: Your cell will teach you everything, he said.
Really?!
So what does my 'cell' teach me in these days and weeks of lockdown? What uncomfortable and important truths are evident in my reactions, my fears, my drives and my appetites? And what do I do with those truths? Where do I go with the things that are uncovered as I wipe tables, and make beds, and do laundry, and invent games, and load dishwashers, and make meals, and read stories, and organise craft activities, and listen to arguments, and make myself available yet again to three other people who are, themselves, on the way?
The girls asked Tim and me yesterday what 'grace' is, really. So I said, it's God's empowering presence, enabling us to live in a way that we couldn't on our own so that we enjoy a sort of goodness we don't deserve. (Really this is a description of the person and work of the Holy Spirit, but that can be the subject of another post.) The writer of the letter to the Hebrews instructed the believers to make sure no one fails to really get it. That is, to get the deep truth that grace is available to each of us through the work of Jesus. And because of it we all get to live in a sort of goodness that we couldn't achieve on our own and that, if we have any sense at all, we know we don't deserve.
This time of lockdown is a special time, unusual. The magnifying glass is being held to the paper long enough that the sun scorches the page. The repetition, the routine, the mundane nature of life in a small space with the same people. By all means, let's switch it up a little (here's to campouts, and fire pits, and dance parties). But whatever we do, let's not miss the truths that rise to the surface while we are in our 'cells.' The truth of our need and the grace that rises in generous measure to meet that need.
Do you get it?
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