On this brilliant Sunday morning as you sit quietly in a chair by the window, reading a study on Biblical texts and I sit more quietly in my reading room scanning a book about miracles, the gentle chimes blow against the wind on the porch and sing out the glories of a restful Sabbath day.
We have temporarily neglected the gathering of the faithful.
I stretch suddenly and rise to take a brief moment to scrub up a large pot left sitting alone in the kitchen sink. The pot is heavy and unwieldy and I struggle to turn it over and over under the gushing water, scraping off the crusty sauce from the delicious stew you cooked last evening. You look up briefly as the clanging of stainless steel against steel disturbs your concentration. We smile with no words and the water continues to flow as I scrub.
Such is this passage called life; when Biblical texts and miracles are necessarily interrupted by a dirty pot which wants cleaning. And therein blooms unabated, the steady frustration of this experience on Earth; that a mere steel pot would demand the setting aside of such high and lofty things such as theological texts and the promises of miracles.
For this detritus; the mundane objects of dirt and elbow grease and the daily requirement of food, serve as a goad, a necessary theology of the kitchen; a reminder that we are not yet home…
690 Saint Paul 