Tending as Artform and Worship
I've just returned from Christmas holiday in Florida, visiting my mother and a coterie of 80- and 90-year-olds, who are actively creating good, entertaining lives. Though some are coping with the death of spouses, I am amazed at their positive attitudes. It reminds me that the business of creating our lives as we want does not end; old age is as fertile a time as any. And so much of their entertainment is simple. I've been traveling for 6 months of 2005, and I'm really ready to feel my house, tend to the tidying of its corners, and to my desk which has been gathering piles. I'm craving silence. I'm in a relationship with my house now, cleaning, replacing old things, moving furniture and art, examining how I move through the day here. Where do I stand? Where do I think? When do I shift gears from one activity to another? Focusing on small things, doing mundane tasks well, letting myself relate to the life in my dishwashing liquid, or the death of a lightbulb—no one will see this, but it is a way to love God. I know, and God knows.