Lessons From Cleaning Pot and Pans

The question was asked and the room fell silent: "Does anyone ever feel they've lived up to their potential?" It was a loaded question, not only because I, at the time in my 50s, was among those in the seminar that were seeking a freshness in elder ministry, but also because the word "potential" is elusive in its definition. What does "potential" mean in a world that views achievement as athletic prowess, celebrity status, or economic success? If the exceptional is the guide for the achievement of one's potential, how will I, who has always lived the ordinary ever think I will ever arrive?

The inherent routine and mundane tasks that still fill my days contribute to the struggle to understand my "potential.” How can I possibly feel substantial when most of my day-in, day-out existence is filled with the tedium of pulling weeds, sweeping up sawdust, home checking, reading, paying bills, and running endless errands for myself and others? These tasks are not celebrated, or noticed. They are the daily details that make up my routine.

I suspect, like me, that for artists and bus drivers, homemakers and neurosurgeons, astronauts and cashiers are filled with repetitive motion, even if we all have moments of great challenge or extraordinary success. Therefore I sit here asking myself, is no wonder, with our societal standards and our routine-filled lives, that I should, at 69, wonder about my potential. Does much of what I do or say even matter when it feels so ordinary? Does the "ordinary" contribute to my sense of meeting my potential, or does it's predominance in these days, simply serve as a perpetual reminder of a failure to thrive?

I’m learning as I attempt to move toward a "simpler lifestyle," that locating  potential is opposite of the ways of society. In this attitudinal adjustment, simplicity unlocks the key to potential, and not acquisition, or achievement, or recognition. Clearing out what clutters and complicates makes room for finding potential in what is most basic and routine. In the Christian tradition, as well, there are many who believe that one's potential and one's purpose would only be found in the radical call of simplicity. Some of the earliest Christians, who fled the luxury and security of Rome once Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Empire, believed that one's "holiness" potential could only be achieved within the radical austerity of a monastic cell. There in the cloistered walls where each and every day presented simple routine, repetitive tasks, and the regular rhythm of prayer and worship, perseverance with the ordinary became the path to one's potential.

Brother Lawrence is one of the most well-known of this type of monastic. In The Practice of Prayer, Margaret Guenther writes that "Brother Lawrence, our patron of housekeeping, was a hero of the ordinary." As one who found his potential in cultivating a profound awareness of God in the ordinary tasks of his day, Brother Lawrence was the "hero of the ordinary." While he attended chapel with the other monks, his true sanctuary was there amongst the pots and pans of his Carmelite kitchen. Until I read it, I hadn’t realized in the popularized retelling of his story is that he hated his work. John Delaney in his work: Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, The Practice of the Presence of God reiterates what Lawrence’s abbot wrote about him:  “The same thing was true of his work in the kitchen, for which he had a naturally strong aversion; having accustomed himself to doing everything there for the love of God, and asking His grace to do his work, he found he had become quite proficient in the fifteen years he had worked in the kitchen."

Quite proficient in the kitchen? I wonder if Brother Lawrence was able to fulfill his potential by washing dishes? Despite his strong aversion, he found purpose in the very midst of the most mundane and ordinary tasks of life. He fulfilled his potential by focusing on faithfulness. This is not faithfulness that triumphs over the desire to fulfill my potential.  Guenther describes it when she writes:  "faithfulness rarely feels heroic; it feels much more like showing up and hanging in. It is a matter of going to our cell, whatever form that might take, and letting it teach us what it will." Availing himself to consistent faithfulness yielded the blessing of both proficiency and presence—the presence of God—right there in midst of the monotony of dirty pots and pans.

Fulfilling my potential has little to do with greatness. And yet, the heroism of the ordinary does not preempt "greatness" that my world confers on me when I  have reached my potential with staggering and dramatic achievement; for I’m learning that even those who achieve greatness have faced the drama of routine and the tidal wave of tedium. To assign the fulfillment of my potential solely to presenting truths from pulpit, lectern, desk or an elders bedside, pieces of beautiful rustic furniture, a fruitful garden, personal acts for family, friends or neighbors and recognition from the same is to miss the blessing that comes from faithful acts of devotion, often done routinely and heroically in the ordinary of my everyday.

Oh that it might be said of me, as it was of Brother Lawrence: "He was more united with God in his ordinary activities."