drudgery

Drudgery is one of the finest touchstones of character there is. Drudgery is work that is very far removed from anything to do with the ideal – the utterly mean grubby things; and when we come in contact with them we know instantly whether or not we are spiritually real.

[...] It requires the inspiration of God to go through drudgery with the light of God upon it. ... When the Lord does a thing through us, He always transfigures it. Our Lord took on Him our human flesh and transfigured it, and it has become for every saint the temple of the Holy Ghost.

- Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest.

I read this yesterday and thought immediately of a vignette in Jamie Langston Turner’s book Winter Birds. Near the beginning, Aunt Sophie explains why she chose to live with her nephew Patrick and his wife Rachel versus other family applicants interested in looking after her in her old age in exchange for her estate on her death.

The first night of my visit with them, I had watched Rachel slice red potatoes for supper . . . . She handled the potatoes as someone working her way through a delicate puzzle. She first sliced each potato into four segments, then studied each quarter, as if measuring it into equal parts before laying her knife against its red skin. She sliced each quarter into three parts, then gently scraped them to one side of the cutting board before beginning the next quarter.

[...] Rachel took up the saltshaker and gave it four deliberate shakes into the water before turning on the eye. When it grew red, she wiped her hands on the apron she was wearing over her blue jeans, then opened a cupboard door and stared inside before reaching up to remove a can of green peas. She cranked it open with a handheld opener, then emptied its contents into another pan, rinsed the can, and threw it into the garbage.

[...] I hate small, constricted minds (the pictures on the walls were cliche prints of Negroes working as happy slaves and the cookie jar was in the shape of a fat, jolly Negro mammy), but I had seen Rachel slice potatoes and wipe her hands on her apron. I also saw her place a cube of butter in the pan of peas, open a can of biscuits, and take meat loaf out of the oven. It wasn’t the food itself that drew me but the slow grace of her actions, as of moving against resistance, like someone under water, someone capable perhaps of surprising, like a large mermaid.

Doesn't that put a new light on making a simple meal?

Additionally, the above reminds me of the Daily Sacrament Contest. The task is to explore, in short story form, the everyday in light of the eternal--or the sacred in the surroundings of the commonplace. The prize is $250 and publication in Relief. Entry is free!