Practicing the Presence of God : An Ode to the Everyday Eternal

Maybe two years ago. A friend lent me Practicing the presence of God by brother Lawrence.

I remember reading it in front of a waterfall in autumn, and thinking "wow, this guy really sees God in baking bread...how...monkish."

(As long as that bread went to a charitable organization, I was on board)

Even by the end of that beautiful book I still saw the that monk's 'mindset' as something to 'achieve', not a radically different way of living my busy evangelical self-righteous faith.

But, it began the whisper against the roar of that my busy self righteousness.

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Now I sit in a neighborhood outside of the Capital City of Podgorica that looks more like a vineyard. Jesse has left for a conference for 6 days. It's just Me, the four year old, the two year old, and the 8 month old (I should probably learn their names).

I get the bread making thing. That life is a beautiful gift. I don;t have to earn it. Now I can hear it...

God sings to me from the crackling of a wood stove,

clothespins become prayer beads

the diaper changing table a confession booth

chopping tomatoes a dance before the Lord

This is my ode, my prayer, my song for the sacred mundane, the everyday eternal,

       “...Jesus saw the eternal in the everyday. Your last day on earth should be spent as you spent all your others-- doing your daily tasks with love and honesty... An ordinary day is, perhaps, the most holy of all.”                  ― Margaret George