Love for Life is Live! Joy Hanna on CIVIC CLUB’s Latest

I am deeply troubled by the racial turmoil coursing through the streets of our country. I am grieved over the evil mistreatment and killing of George Floyd. I am angry about justice denied to countless others like him. And I am upset with myself and ashamed to admit that all too often I've been silent or apathetic about persistent racism in our country—racism before my very eyes.

One of the sweetest gifts one can receive in life is the joy of friendship. Though he didn't necessarily have friendship in mind, the words of Chile's nobel-prize winning poet Pablo Neruda still proves helpful; friendship does to the heart what "spring does with the cherry tree." What exactly does spring do to a cherry tree you ask? It causes it to blossom. A good friend has the unique ability to not only be a great companion, but also to be the very agent through whom you metamorphose into a radiant and flourishing human being.

The steady syncopation of our dishwasher has hardly stopped its rinsing and draining since the beginning of the quarantine. Spending our days pouring second cups of coffee and cooking more meals than usual has resulted in hazard pay for our little dishwasher that could. Among the many items that make the usual cleansing rotation—cramped, as they are, between the plastic prongs of the washer's shelves—leftover-stained Tupperware containers are by far the most common.

I like to think I wasn't a defiant kid. I like to think I was delightfully obedient in both the small tasks like going to sleep when asked or eating vegetables, and in the big ones like not hitting my sister or lying to my parents (to fact check me you might ask my mom).

As I contemplated writing about Tish Harrison Warren's chapter on losing keys, it immediately struck me as ironic—I hardly need my keys right now. I don't go anywhere. But Warren writes that losing keys shows us how we act when our plans are interrupted. I can cover up my sinfulness when all is going according to my plan, but when things are not, well, it is not so pretty. COVID-19 is not according to Valerie Tompson's plan.

City Church will begin a series of blogs reflecting on Tish Harrison Warren's book, Liturgy of the Ordinary. Our strange times are the farthest thing from ordinary, but her book explores the transformation that happens in the daily, monotonous rhythms of our lives. As many of us feel stuck doing all of life at home, we remember how all of life is worship.