The Quotidian

Kathleen Norris speaks of the “Quotidian Mysteries”, the correlation between living everyday and the living God. And so I display my ramblings of The Quotidian Mysteries...

quo·tid·i·an 1 : occurring every day 2 a : belonging to each day : everyday b : commonplace, ordinary

It is the mundane. The ordinary. The quotidian. I despise it. The constant work that is never done. The daily drudge of life. In a sense, tedious repetition.

But, that is life under the sun: mundane and ordinary. That is what it’s supposed to be. It’s not that we can, or are meant to, glorify these menial events or make them greater than what they are. No matter how hard I try, taking out the trash will always be taking out the trash. The dirty dishes will always be dirty dishes. Genesis tells us it’s the curse. But like so many curses there is a redemptive element. A friend says that it is the subtext that gives it meaning. We encounter God in the quotidian; it is in these moments we realize that life is undergirded by God.

I tend to approach spiritual maturity and growth wrongly with a gnostic attitude, believing that experiencing God and spiritual growth occur in escapism, or in pristine woods, landscapes, or oceans. We see Him clearly in the highs of retreats, sermons, and church, in smoky studies with elbow patched tweed jackets. I envision my spiritual development as a picturesque one-time act. I want to write it. I want to be god in it. It is incomprehensible to envision our spirituality developing alongside the quotidian as we dive through a sea of dirty dishes, or hike along the wilderness of periodicals in attempts to conquer term papers, or in the heights of soiled diapers and the cacophony of rowdy children.

But Babel reminds us of our innate tendency to desire escape of this world and redemption through our own efforts. We cannot escape, we cannot achieve, and we cannot raise ourselves above the trivial aspects of life. This world that we cannot transcend is the theater Christ entered. Just like redemption, growth and sanctification do not occur abstractly outside of this world, they happen amidst the quotidian by means of a heavenly condescension. Patterned after a story of rescued slaves, a virgin birth, a life lived and died in my place in the milieu of quotidian.

But that is where He meets us. It’s what transforms us. It is the menial and ordinary that is the gestation for the fruit of the Spirit. In the long obedience of Gospel living, Gospel repenting, and Gospel clinging we live in the quotidian. It is the pain of looking back at the end of the day, sometimes with tears, sometimes with laughter, and asking “God, what are you doing?”

In looking back at the quotidian we witness what He has done, is doing, and are assured of what He will do. It’s what makes the quotidian redemptive, sacramental, and indeed mysterious.