Posts Tagged: mundane tasks

“Hanging up Clothes and Accidental Happiness”

On August 22, 2022 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

I grew up before the days when a lot of people had electric or gas-powered dryers to dry their clothes. We used to wash our clothes by hand or in a washing machine, get the water out of them as best we could, and then hang them outside on the line to dry in the sunshine and wind.

I like bounce sheets, but there is nothing like fresh air and sunshine for making clothes smell wonderful. I was reminded of this smell this morning because of a 12-step reading that I did. Here it is:

“Monday, August 22

… sparrow, your message is clear: it is not too late for my singing.
  —Tess Gallagher

There was once a mother who loved to hang the laundry out on the clothesline in the backyard. Her baby crawled through the sheets and towels that almost touched the grass. The baby didn’t talk yet, so nobody knew what she was thinking.

Ten years later, the baby, twelve years old, told her that her happiest memory of childhood was playing in her “playhouse” of laundry on the line. She remembered thinking that her mother hung the sheets out there just so she could play in the grass and wind and sun!

How wonderful to be living in a world where we can accidentally make people happy! This knowledge is a miraculous gift, and can give us reason to do every task well and with love, because it may be remembered for a lifetime by someone near to us.

What happy memory do I have of childhood?” (From Today’s Gift: Daily Meditations for Families ©1985, 1991 by Hazelden Foundation.)

I don’t remember crawling through my mom’s accidental playhouse of drying clothes and sheets, but I do remember walking and running through it. It was a wonderful experience.

Of course, for my mom, doing the laundry was hard work. She was not young (forty-four years old) when I was born. She was a hard-working farm wife. She had arthritis. (I am just beginning to experience that form of mild torture.) I am not sure if I ever told her how much I liked the smell and feel of clothes drying on a clothesline.

I wonder if there are not a lot of things that are hard work or mundane tasks for us that might be bringing accidental happiness to someone. We may not be aware of it. They may or may not notice and thank us. But the crucial thing is that we be, as George MacDonald said, “. . . doers of the work . . . .”

And even God is pleased when we do the mundane things that need to be done. The Apostle Paul discusses at some length whether the Christ-followers in Corinth should eat meat that has been sacrificed to idols. He gives them a lot of good specific counsel, but then he gives them—and us—an overarching principle. “So, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31, New Living Translation)

When we do even such mundane things as eating and drinking for the glory of God, we give God a lot of not-so-accidental happiness.

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