Hi friends, talking about the Beauty in the Mundane today. Hello and a very happy weekend to you wherever you may be!

Hopefully Spring is minding its’ manners and behaving where you are, and it’s warm and sunny with blooms. Tulips would be nice. They’re my favorite. Our week actually started off cold, wet and raw around here, but thankfully the forecast improved just a smidge each day.

Thankfully, because it was getting downright dreary. I might be one of those people who needs light. I don’t know what that condition is called and I’m not gonna stop and google it now. Do enlighten me if you know. (Pun intended.) But there are people who sit under special lights in the winter because they are light deprived. And as the days are lengthening and the sunshine quotient increasing, I think I’m easier to be around. (!)

(If you’re new here, I post recipes during the week and muse on the weekends.)

I’ve been thinking a good bit about the Mundane recently. Some friends and I were chatting about the large percentage of time spent doing the Mundane tasks that need to be accomplished in life. You know, those rote repetitive responsibilities that suck up time and energy. Toilet scrubbing. Bill paying. The thankless jobs that, almost as soon as you finish them, they need repeating. It sure can be wearying.

So I compiled a list of some of the tasks I do ad infinitum either daily, weekly or monthly, in no certain order:

• wash dishes
• empty the dishwasher
• change diapers
• laundry
• dust
• vacuum
• make the bed
• scrub toilets
• haircuts for my boys
• carpool kids
• pay bills
• go through/clearing/filing the paperwork mountain on the kitchen counter
• balance the checking account
• clean the kitchen counters
• make dinner/cook
• grocery shop
• fill the car with gas
• meal plan

Phew, and now I’m tired just writing the list, rehearsing the tasks. There are certainly more I could add. And your list is different than mine. These are just the ones that came to mind first. For me, some tasks are more tiresome than others, especially the ones related to my sweet Hudson. (Hudson’s 5, my littlest of four boys. Is non-verbal, has Down syndrome.) The tasks related to Hudson can be overwhelming because little people with special needs often progress slowly developmentally, sometimes stay in the same stage for even years at a time.

Right now Hudson’s in an ardent “take apart my peanut butter and jelly sandwich stage.” First off, he wants his sandwich cut into little squares.

Yep, he’s got rules.

So every time he eats a PB & J (which is like, every day), he carefully separates each sandwich square, methodically lays it PB or J side up. No, they don’t stay that way. That would be too easy. And you know where this is going. Once he has all the game pieces set up just so, he starts eating. Some adhere to his shirt sleeve. Others land on the floor or his lap. Or the chair. Some stick to the countertop. And some, by default, arrive in his little pie hole. So when I say wiping down the kitchen counters, there’s a tad more to that story.

There’s a special person who helped me truly understand the Beauty in the Mundane. Her name is Ann, Ann Voskamp. Ann is a farmer’s wife, an author, a mother of six. Wrote the book One Thousand Gifts that deeply impacted me. In her book, among other things, she talks about cataloging the beauty all around us. Keeping a running tab of those beautiful things that sometimes enter the portholes of our eyes, but we are often blind to. The curl of an eyelash. The brilliant blue of the sky. The intricacy of the soap bubble reflection. Ann talks about a grateful heart, intentionally rehearsing gratitude for each tiny gift in life, no matter how seemingly insignificant.

“The brave who focus on all things good and all things beautiful and all things true, even in the small, who give thanks for it and discover joy even in the here and now, they are the change agents who bring fullest light to all the world.” – Ann Voskamp

“There is a way to live the big of giving thanks in all things. It is this: to give thanks in this one small thing. The moments will add up.” – Ann Voskamp

“Life-changing gratitude does not fasten to a life unless nailed through with one very specific nail at a time.” -Ann Voskamp

Reminds me of one of my all-time favorite quotes by Marcel Proust, on the header of this blog:

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

Isn’t that the truth though? We see what we choose to see. And when we choose to look expectantly with intentionality, we suddenly see those beautiful things that just moments ago were hidden.

So back to that chat with my friends. In our conversation meanderings, we came to the conclusion that every single Mundane task, is actually just hard proof of how much we’ve been blessed.

• washing dishes – food to eat on those dishes
• emptying the dishwasher – not washing and drying each dish by hand
• changing diapers – a precious little person to love on, cherish and care for
• laundry – clothes to wear (yep – that’s a relief!)
• dusting – furniture in my home
• making the bed –  a comfortable, clean place to sleep each night

• scrubbing toilets – the days of outhouses (and chamber pots) are over (rejoice!)
• carpooling kids –  my children are experiencing a life rich with opportunity
• paying bills –  we have electricity, water, food, phones etc., also the money to pay those bills
• balancing the bank accounts – enough money that it needs balancing
• making dinner – blessed with a family to feed
• washing the kitchen counters – love you Hudson, because of the precious person you are, not the PB & J mess you make
• grocery shopping – so many available choices of food and produce

Because the truth is, the Mundane itself, is just one more evidence of an overflowing and abundant life. Meanwhile, there are millions dealing with heartache, tragedy, etc. Every day their best wish would be for the mundane. It’s often only in tragedy or loss that we suddenly realize what a beautiful place the mundane was. And we long to go back.

“When we lay the soil of our hard lives open to the rain of grace and let joy penetrate our cracked and dry places, let joy soak into our broken skin and deep crevices, life grows. How can this not be the best thing for the world? For us?” – Ann Voskamp

I’m thinking about the Beauty in the Mundane for a number of reasons, but one of them is that we received heartbreaking news this past week that southern friends of ours tragically lost their daughter on Tuesday. The funeral was yesterday. My heart is so heavy for them. If only they could turn back the clock, they’d welcome the mundane with arms wide open. It really puts things into perspective.

And so my mundane becomes yet another reason for eucharisteo, thanksgiving. 

Goodbye friends, gotta go scrub toilets. Fold laundry. Wash dishes. Clean kitchen counters. (With a grateful heart.)

You may also like: Key Women

The post Beauty in the Mundane appeared first on Through Her Looking Glass.

Last year I read an article regarding Key Women by Ann Voskamp. If you don’t know Ann, she’s the New York Times bestselling author of One Thousand Gifts, her first book. I read the book at a poignant time in life, after Hudson’s birth and surprise diagnosis with Down syndrome. Almost five years ago now, when my world was rocked.

Key Women by allie taylor

So a dear friend, closely walking that journey alongside me, gives me One Thousand Gifts. I skim the author bio on the book flap. Ann’s a pig farmer’s wife. Grows corn. Lives in southwestern Ontario with her husband and six children. They homeschool. (These are her author credentials.) I quietly set the book back on the coffee table, don’t open it for months.

Finally I pick up One Thousand Gifts again, when the time must be right. Slowly, I digest Ann’s wisdom words over a number of tearful reads. So glad. It’s a profound book, deeply affects how I live my life today. (So don’t judge a book by its cover. Ha. Or an author by her husband’s occupation.)

So Ann, the hog farmer’s wife, also has a blog. Not a hog blog, but A Holy Experience. Last year I devoured her article How Women Can Stop Judging Each Other: A Movement of Key Women.

I resonated with much she had to say. Here’s a few “Ann” quotes from the article.

“Perfectionism is a slow death to self. Perfectionism will kill your skill, your spark, your art, your soul.”

“And I have no idea… why the women down the street and across the table keep holding each other to a standard of perfection instead of letting us all be held by the arms of grace.”

“Judging others is a blindfold. Judging others is a blindfold that blinds us to our own grime and blinds us to the grace which others are as eligible and entitled to as we are. If I have loved breathing in grace for me, how can I deny you the same oxygen?”

“We need Key Women in our lives who emancipate us from crushing expectations… who unlock the courtrooms where we’re judged and assessed and weighed in these scales that feel like millstones around our necks. Key Women who believe that we can change, things can change, kids can change, minds can change, the world can change.”

“There could be this rising of Key Women who are soul abolitionists, who end the enslavement of women to the self-appointed judges, Key Women who unlock and unleash (other) women to transform into their own unique calling and giftedness.”

Wouldn’t it be an amazingly different world if the judging (and being judged) among women stopped?

I’ve drunk long and deep from an amazing cup called grace, incredibly blessed to have multiple Key Women in my life. There was a time I thought I had to be perfect before letting others in. Into my home, my life or my heart. No more. I say from experience: the prison of perfection is a very lonely place of residence. Grace was extended to me by kind and loving women I respect. I’m deeply indebted for the grace, also the time and effort spent passing it through the prison bars to one oblivious to her need: me. And in gratitude, I aspire to pay it forward. To be a key woman for others, a cup of grace.

So several weeks after reading the article last year, How Women Can Stop Judging Each Other: A Movement of Key Women, a knock on my door. I don’t hear it. My house, a pit. But Jon lets her in. No makeup (me), in the bathroom, head hung low, blowdrying. I come up for air, find her standing there. Cheerful, smiling… a beautifully wrapped package extended to me. Not my birthday, not even Christmas. She passes it to me, yet another brimming cup of grace, and I hesitantly reach with both hands to accept. Our hands, eyes, hearts meet somewhere in the middle.

“For you,” she says. And I open it.

Inside, this key.

“I want you to know I pledge to be a Key Woman in your life. I won’t judge you for how you look (or don’t). What stuff you have (or don’t). I won’t talk about you. And I won’t let others talk about you in my presence. I won’t judge you for your house cleaning (or lack). Or how you school your children. Whether you eat organic, or how you spend your money. How often you go to the gym. Or how high the laundry stacks in your chute.” (Thank God, the last one especially.)

The language was familiar, sweet. She’d also read Ann’s article. I already knew in my heart of hearts she’d never do any of the things she promised not to. But it was a freeing, affirming gift just the same.

She also designed this, gave it to me. (Ain’t she clever?) Yeah, it’s water-stained and loved now. (I did that.)

There’s no way to repay such a gift. Except to pay it forward.

I have other Key Women in my life. They’ve not necessarily verbalized a pledge, they just live it. Two more girlfriends. Both successful in their fields, professional women I respect. At the time, Through Her Looking Glass, merely twinkle in my eye. I hesitantly e-mail one.

“I’m thinking about launching a blog. Here’s my ideas. Any thoughts? Do you think I could even do this?”

The first reply, short and sweet.

“You’d rock a blog. How can I help?”

I cry.

So a few weeks later I muster up courage again, compose an e-mail to the second, timidly press send.

The second reply: “You’ll do awesome. Let me know how I can help! I’ll spread the word.”

More tears.

You know, they could’ve said a lot of other things, asked a lot of real questions. Like, “This is really hard work. Are you prepared to work hard?” Or “Have you done any real writing before?” Or “When’s the last time you worked in a real job with deadlines?”  Or “Do you have any qualifications, any formal training for this?” Yes, they could’ve asked those questions, and many more. (And would’ve been justified.) But they didn’t. Grace. And had their replies to my questions been different, I might’ve never picked up my pen, chased this heart dream of mine.

Many Key Women in my life through the years. Women not just affirming with words, but actively living out that support, believing in me. I’m blessed and beyond thankful.

Women: we need each other.

Let’s apply the Golden Rule. In the same way we yearn to receive that love, acceptance and grace ourselves, let’s dole out generous helpings to others. We can hurt or bless with our words, also with silence. Our words (or silence) can curse. You’ve felt the sting of words, the silence, the disapproving glance. Or all three. Me too. Regretfully, I’ve been on the giving and receiving ends. So have you.

Words: they’re powerful.

Words: they’re free, won’t cost you a dime.

Words: use them liberally to build and affirm those around you.

Not only do “we need key women in our lives who emancipate us from crushing expectations,”  we need to be key women who emancipate others from crushing expectations. Be a key woman in someone’s life today, a key of grace that might just unlock their world. The world’s a better place for all of us as we encourage the women around us to use their gifts and creativity to their fullest potential.

Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it.  –Proverbs 3:27

This post lovingly dedicated to Julie and the many wonderful Key Women God has graciously placed in my life through the years, sprinkled here and around the country. Thanks for the grace.

Vacillation

My body of a sudden blazed,

And twenty minutes more or less,

It seemed, so great my happiness,

That I was blessed and could bless.

                                     -W.B. Yeats

Related posts: She Picked Up Her Pen

The post Key Women appeared first on Through Her Looking Glass.