270/365 Dregs

From Joan Chittister's reflection on today's reading from the Rule:

God does not come on hoofbeats of mercury through streets of gold. God is in the dregs of our lives. That's why it takes humility to find God where God is not expected to be.

My best daily spiritual time? Washing the endless dishes. Rinsing, stacking, loading the dishwasher, washing the pots by hand, trying to figure out how to get the burned on butternut squash residue out of my crockpot. Sometimes I have the radio on and Tavis Smiley or Tom Ashbrook tells me things. But most of the time I work with the running water and the distant sounds of my family getting on with their evening in the rest of the house.

There is a stillness in my heart when I do dishes, like when I watch a fire on a camping trip. A meditation to the work and the same scene again and again. The windowsill with my oak leaf bowl. The milk glass vases. The marble. The glass from the Buena Vista. It's kind of an altar. Old things, precious things, depictions of creation, and things that have no meaning except to me. Below them, the jar of cooking utensils, the vitamins, the dish soap. Sugar jar. The Mexican tiles I use under my big pans to keep them balanced on my lovely, but sometimes impractical, stove. I know these images by heart the way I know the rosary. I stand in the corner, the window giving the rhythm of seasons to set off the static pieces of the counter and windowsill. It's just a sink. It's just the kitchen. But God sits there and spills coffee on the table while the water runs over my hands.