We were stacking some of our wood yesterday in the not-quite cool of mid-morning. It was a last-minute decision to let the dishes go by the wayside. Not because dishes don’t matter, they do. If I were a list-maker (and I am), I could see the never-ending road of tasks, paved before me, leading me into apathy if I let it. Every day the list would contain the same items; a broken record of near- accomplishments, if only the needle would move. When I saw the pile of freshly-cut logs laughing at my to-do list, I relented. It was an addition to my list. It was Newton’s law taunting my juggling act of housework. I fight this on a daily basis; this pagan desire to complete my tasks and be rewarded with idleness. This is, I believe, one of the greatest accidental heresies of the history of house-wifery: that work is a result of the fall. We live according to our feelings. We thank God for our food and then curse the platter it was served on. We ask for daily bread and then huff and puff about needing to lug it in from the car. You don’t need to slide into monasticism to slow down and face with purpose each moment as it comes. The dishes will keep.
One of my favorite paintings is Jean-Francois Millet’s The Angelus. When I see the image of the prayers standing in the middle of the important work of farming, deigning to submit to the truth that we can toil in the fields but it is God who gives life, I am humbled to repentance for my unhappy pride of “getting the dishes done”. Dishes are part of the gift. “Hand to mouth”, although figuratively representing financial poverty, paints a vivid image for us. The poor hold out their hands, not their carefully collected dishware. Dirty plates are the evidence of manna instead of wrath. And when God sees fit to bless us with cords of His creation, bearing rings of life that existed before we took our first breaths, just so that we can toss it in the wood stove and remark at our dismay in the change of weather, we can instead give thanks.
We brought the record player outside to stack the wood. It’s okay to enjoy your work.