Sacraments (Banana Bread and Cleaning)

Sacrament: something regarded as possessing a sacred character or mysterious significance.

I've been thinking about sacraments this afternoon. Those things that, for whatever reason, have some sacred significance.

The big ones - the Lord's supper, baptism etc.

But mostly about all the little ones that are purely individual, are almost quirks of nature.

I was thinking about them, because as I engaged in a couple of acts this afternoon, I realized that they are things that have in many ways, over the course of this last year, become deeply sacramental in my life. They are things that have become prayers, that as I do them, seem endowed with a deeper significance.

Baking banana bread. I started baking banana bread on a regular basis sometime around Easter. I was engaged in a fast of chocolate and sweets that lasted for several months, and banana bread was a healthy alternative snack and breakfast item. When I started baking it, it was a constant reminder to pray, because it was only necessary to be baked due to the fast. That fast and several others have come and gone, and somewhere along the way, baking banana bread and praying have become a part of my routine. A part of my daily life, but somehow endowed with deeper significance. It once took me nearly 2 hours to mix up a batch, because I was talking online about some of the deeper relational struggles that have marked this year with a dear friend, and praying as we talked and I baked. I thought about that this afternoon, as I mixed up another batch, filled loaf pans, and put them in the oven. I thought about it as the scent of the baking bread filled my house. And I prayed again for many of those same things - for the things that led me to fast and bake banana bread in the first place and the things that remain heavy on my heart today.

Cleaning. Cleaning is perhaps an odd thing to be endowed with sacredness, and yet, for me, it often is. I'm sitting here just now, enjoying the fruits of an afternoon of labor. Both of my roommates have now left the country for the holidays, and it is only me in our home for the next two weeks. I'll enjoy this, but it also concerns me in some ways - sleep has been a challenge again of late, and there is added security in knowing that if it is really bad, there is a friend down the hall whom I can wake and ask to pray with me.

I discovered long ago that when my heart and mind became too cluttered or afraid, and I became immobilized, I would bring order to my physical space, which had often become a cluttered reflection of my state of mind and heart. For years now, I've been cleaning as a sort of wordless prayer for restoration. This past year, that has intensified greatly, and I've prayed with and without words as I've cleaned.

And so, today, as I face two weeks of quiet in the house, but also the added fear of being alone, I spent the afternoon cleaning, praying as I did through the rooms I tidied and restored order too. Working my way through laundry, and our kitchen. Through sweeping and vaccuming. (And I'll clean the bathroom later still.)

And so, I'm sitting here, at a kitchen table that is clear (save for my laptop) for the first time in months, staring out the sliding doors at the fading daylight on this shortest day of the year and the snow drifts on our deck that I know (from experience this afternoon while taking out the garbage) are knee deep, smelling the banana bread I removed from the oven, and thinking about sacraments, and wondering again, at how the most simple and common things of life can be endowed with deep meaning, can become sacraments unexpectedly.

May those things in my life ever multiply.