and joy deep down inside

I don’t remember what he said, every night when he prayed for my sister and me in our double bed, except for one thing: Daddy’s prayers always ended with the same request.

“I pray that they would wake up in the morning,” he’d say, “with smiles on their faces, and songs in their hearts, and joy deep down inside.”

We weren’t a liturgical family.  We shied away from all that denominational mess in favor of The Bible.  My Sunday School teacher Miss Janie created her own curriculum, taking us through every story in the Book, even (and memorably) the one where Jael hammered a tent peg through Sisera and the one where Ehud’s sword was swallowed up by Eglon’s rolls of fat. On Sunday mornings we sang praise choruses and old Baptist hymns to the rhythm of acoustic guitar.  Once a month we passed around plates of oyster crackers and plastic cups of grape juice, and when it came time for baptism, Daddy did mine, out on the Frio River.

I loved God, and the church, and the stories I learned.  But as a teenager I began to yearn for tradition and liturgy...

{Read the rest at Mama Monk.)

music and liturgy

The first music I loved was on tape. It was Rich Mullins, "Winds of Heaven, Stuff of Earth," and I was probably about twelve years old. I graduated to CD soon enough, and my little collection consisted mostly of the free discs dad brought home from the radio station - Amy Grant's "Heart in Motion" (and my signed picture), Steven Curtis Chapman's great adventure.

Then in high school I regressed back to tapes, because tapes were what played in my '88 camry. The Hootie and the Blowfish tape I made of the cd I found when I was babysitting at the Whitlock's house. The recordings Caedmon's Call made before they were signed to a label.

Technology changed again. We had napster, and I was sampling new things, mp3 files burned to disc: Rosie Thomas, Dar Williams, Ani Difranco, Toad the Wet Sprocket.

But through all those changes, my listening was always limited to the collection that I owned, and as I result I really treasured albums, and I listened to almost all of them until I knew all the words by heart. The music was important to me.

Then in my twenties there was isohunt, and peer to peer sharing, and then pandora, and then rdio and spotify, and now I can listen to (or even "own") almost anything I want, at any time, and in practically any place.

The abundant availability of music made it harder to value, enjoy, and be moved by. It wasn't worth as much. So it didn't mean as much. It was digital, taking up no space in my life at all. It was overconsumption of something that was as light as air.

This is why, three or four years ago, Jack and I decided to quit peer to peer sharing. We deleted all (ok, not all, but most) of our illegally gained mp3 files. It's also why we bought a record player and started actually purchasing music again, this time on vinyl.

Now, when we get new music, it means something. It's an investment, and it takes up space in our house, so we also invest our time listening to it and letting it grow space in our hearts.

Recently I've felt that listening to music on a record player is something like the liturgy and eucharist at our Episcopal church. Listening to a record is a very physical process. I don't type a name in a search box; I kneel and flip through record sleeves. I stand, and lift the lid, and place the needle just right. The music requires attention, and after a few songs, I move to turn the record over. The records, and the player, take up physical space in my life, a rooted kind of space. They require a physical response. They require attention. They are repeated. Place, roots, physical response, attention, repetition: these not only signal that what I'm doing means something, but they create meaning as well.

folding fitted sheets

I saw this on pinterest last week, and I chuckled. Who doesn't hate folding fitted sheets? It's a hassle. They never seem to come out perfectly.

If you are reading my blog, you probably know me well enough to know that I am not a fastidious housekeeper. When I was growing up, my younger sister eventually had to take on more chore duties than I did, precisely because I was not as good as she was at getting things clean and tidy (sorry, Kate!). Now that I'm older, I hope my home is clean enough so that no one is uncomfortable in it or endangered by it, but that's about as far as I go.

However, for some reason I just keep thinking about this sentiment. I think about my distinct memory of my mom, instructing me on how to fold a fitted sheet. I think about the care it takes. I think about god, who is not a god of disorder; who is a god of beauty. I think about the earth without form and void, about god calling light out of darkness, and about Adam giving names to all the animals. About monks returning to their same tasks and their same liturgies day after day. About the one sitting on the throne and making all things new.

And I think life is long enough to fold fitted sheets, if it brings some order and beauty to my corner of the world, if it shows care and respect for those things with which I've been entrusted.

In fact, I think I have decided that folding fitted sheets is exactly what life is for.

(incidentally, I just realized that this image is the cover of a book. This post is not about the book, which I know nothing about -it's just about the cover sentiment.)