Next to Godliness: Finding the Sacred in Housekeeping

by Alice Peck (Editor)

Explore the place where clean and holy meet―and chart a new course toward discovering sanctity. "I've always sought solace in cleaning.... As my husband and I packed up our apartment and cleaned the profound dust of the Twin Towers from our books and pillows, we used this shared ritual as an opportunity to reflect and heal. As my neighbor once said, 'Cleaning house is my church.’"
―from the Introduction Be they our kitchens after a meal or our communities after a crisis, we all face the times―and opportunities―when we must clean up. Through a beautiful, diverse and eclectic array of personal narratives, fiction, sacred texts and verse, this inspiring book offers new perspectives on the unique ways we can reach out for the Divine within the simple acts of washing the dishes, doing the laundry, making a home and more. Giving the process of cleaning house depth and resonance, these writings will speak to your heart and allow you to see beyond the task at hand and into a greater undertaking―to realize the sacred in all that we do. From sweeping the home, to organizing the office, to cleaning up the more daunting “Big Messes” in our communities, this engaging book touches upon every facet of our lives. Contributors Louisa May Alcott • Gaston Bachelard • James Baldwin • Andrea Barrett • Mary Catherine Bateson • Jeannette Batz • Sue Bender • Stephen Vincent Benét • Henri Bosco • Sarah Ban Breathnach • Gwendolyn Brooks • Brother Lawrence • Dominique Browning • Yitzhak Buxbaum • Lydia Maria Child • Joan Chittister • Billy Collins • Amiya Corbin • John Crawford • Dorothy Day • Shoghi Effendi • Rick Fields • Sir James George Frazer • Tess Gallagher • Mahatma Gandhi • Allen Ginsberg • Bernard Glassman • Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb • Tenzin Gyatso • Thich Nhat Hanh • Nathaniel Hawthorne • Homer • Ashley Isaacson • Martin Luther King, Jr • Dorianne Laux • Ursula K. Le Guin • Eric Leigh • Jarvis Jay Masters • Cheryl Mendelson • Mother Teresa • Pablo Neruda • Marsha Norman • Gunilla Norris • Kathleen Norris • Kakuzo Okakura • Marc Poirier • Louise Rafkin • Otagaki Rengetsu • Rainer Maria Rilke • Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche • Marilynne Robinson • Taigu Ryokan • Hannah Whitall Smith • Starhawk • Henry David Thoreau • Gary Thorp • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe • Booker T. Washington • Jessamyn West • Richard Wilbur • Virginia Woolf • Anzia Yezierska

Genres: Spirituality

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 31, 2007

About the author

Drawn to finding the sacred in everyday things, Alice is the author of five books: Be More Tree; Mindful Beads; The Secret Language of Herbs; Bread, Body, Spirit; and Next to Godliness.

With Chris Grosso she cowrote Dead Set on Living—Making the Difficult but Beautiful Journey from F#*king Up to Waking Up. Her writing has appeared in Center for Humans & Nature, Spirituality & Health, Daily Good, and The Mountain Record. As an editor, she focuses on creativity, mind, and spirit, collaborating with spiritual teachers, psychotherapists, meditation instructors, and authors of all sorts.

She lives in Red Hook, Brooklyn with her family.

Reviews

[Jesse Powell · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an ex-soldier and a diesel mechanic for a garbage company, one would think I would never read this book. And I admit, I would not. The incredible thing is the thinking after reading it. In looking upon the spaces and function, the meditation of "the good part" this book altered how I viewed my toolbox and the world around me.

Indeed, I subscribe to the "clean desk is a sign of an idle mind" mentality but I also reap the rewards and enjoy the preparation for the next project. A clean space now sings of potential and there is reduced anxiety by stopping to prepare. I wish many more men would pick this up!

[Shayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A meditation on the home. I felt inspired to clean and contemplate.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

For this book, Alice Peck has gathered all sorts of writings on different aspects of housekeeping. As she does in her later book Bread, Body, Spirit: Finding the Sacred in Food, she groups these writings by topic. She could have easily just collected spiritual writings on laundry, on sweeping, on doing the dishes, and produced a decent enough book. But Peck goes further: her early chapters center on these everyday domestic tasks and then she gradually broadens the scope of her anthology until the last chapter, about cleaning up the "Big Messes" (the effects of war, terrorism, pollution, natural disasters, and so on). This really held the book together thematically and was an excellent decision. I enjoyed the writings Peck chose as well as the way she organized them. They come from different spiritual traditions and different genres, but go together remarkably well. I can't say as I enjoyed all of them, but many of them will bear rereading.

Peck states, "I've consciously avoided vast and critical issues of feminism, toxins, and labor injustices..." and I understand that this would've been a completely different book if she hadn't, likely one that I wouldn't have enjoyed as much. But since I read this immediately after reading Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America and just as the labor conditions in Foxconn's plants were hitting the news in the United States, it was impossible not to think of those omissions. But because I found the book so interesting, this leaves me willing to consider these issues on my own rather than just checking it off as one more book read and forgetting about these issues.

Now if only it had left me feeling inspired to actually do any housekeeping...

[Annette Summerfield · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read many self help books and listen to Deepok, Dr. Wayne Dyer and Louise Hay and so on and on...
so this book is a good read. Is it going to make me want to clean more?..'no'
The book can't give me the energy and health I need to take on the cleaning. I don't feel motivated to attack my basement or cobwebs after reading it, but it's a good read