He who is aching in every limb, worn out by the effort of a day of work, that is to say a day when he has been subject to matter, bears the reality of the universe in his flesh like a thorn.
The difficulty for him is to look and to love.
If he succeeds, he loves the Real.
- SIMONE WEIL
Can we use physical labor as a path to the heart of our Creator? As a way to know Jesus, to love Jesus?
Barbara Brown Taylor says in An Altar in the World,
If all life is holy, then anything that sustains life has holy dimensions too.
The difference between washing windows and resting in God can be a simple decision: choose the work, and it becomes your spiritual practice.
. . . No task is too menial to serve as a path. If you are able to sustain other lives along with your own, then all the better.
May we use even our most menial tasks as holy offerings of love.
* * *
Is there a physical chore you hate to do?
How do you flip it mentally into a choice to bless others?
- April 2013: The practice of saying no
- March 2013: The practice of wearing skin
- February 2013: The practice of slowing down
- January 2013: The practice of waking up to God
