I simply get to work on ordinary things.
This is all I know to do when I don’t know what to do.

I show up here with intention and I try to notice my own life a bit more; I
consecrate the ordinary work. I figure that if the world is being desecrated
the least we can do is try to notice all of the sacredness that remains still
around us and in us.

So I notice things like the old-man pine trees with their stooped and swayed
boughs, I notice the pink streaks of the sunset, I laugh at the lame jokes by
TV hosts, and I put away the phone while I start and end my day. I stop my
friends and dear ones to thank them for how hard they work in the world
… and how precious time with them is to me. And I cherish our quick hugs
and think to myself I am so grateful you are in my life.

I am not that powerful and I’m certainly not important. I feel like there isn’t
much I can do about the fact that the world seems to be ending every
Saturday night. I write letters to politicians with my suggestions for
improvement. I send money to people who seem like they know what
they’re doing. I read a lot.

And I pray. I pray while I move through my life.

That’s what my ordinary work has become for me, an embodied prayer, a
way of holding space for all that is broken while my hands work towards
creating a bit of cleanliness, a bit of order, a bit of beauty around me.
I feed people, I clean, I walk, I gather people, I sing, and the whole time a
corner of my soul is crying out to God in braided grief and hope and
longing: strengthen us, embolden us, light our hearts on fire, show us we
belong to each other, break down the barriers between us, give us eyes to
see and ears to hear and hearts to understand.

I call down fire and love and justice and peace like falling stars and I pray
for the courage to crack open my own life to receive their burning clarity.

The words of Sarah Bessey.