Ashley’s Reviews > Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life > Status Update

“Do all this without grumbling or disputing.” Philippians 2:14

“There are times when we may need to leave the dishes in the sink and go for a walk or hang out with our friends or play with our kids or take a nap.”

“Yet our patience does not make us passive about the brokenness of the world.”

“I always felt like I was waiting for the gift. But I’ve come to see that waiting is the gift. In waiting, God has met [you] and sown in [you] things that only grow with time—with changing seasons and bated breath.”

“We need to learn the slow habits of loving God and those around us. Like liturgy, the work of cleaning draws much of its meaning and value from repetition, from the fact that it is never completed, but only set aside. Both liturgy and “domestic” work also have an intense relation with the present moment, a kind of faith in the present that fosters hope and makes life seem possible in the day-to-day.”

“Examining my daily liturgy as a liturgy—as something that both revealed and shaped what I love and worship—allowed me to realize that my daily practices were malforming me, making me less alive, less human, less able to give and receive love throughout my day. Changing this ritual allowed me to form a new repetitive and contemplative habit that pointed me toward a different way of being-in-the-world.”

“God is forming us into a new people. And the place of that formation is in the small moments of today.”