Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life

The only thing that makes the church endurable is that somehow it is the body of Christ, and on this we are fed.”7

We keep eating. We receive nourishment. We keep listening and learning and taking our daily bread. We wait on God to give us what we need to sustain us one more day. We acknowledge that there is far more wonder in this life of worship than we yet have eyes to see or stomachs to digest. We receive what has been set before us today as a gift.

Our task is not to somehow inject God into our work but to join God in the work he is already doing in and through our vocational lives.

Our powerful need for sleep is a reminder that we are finite. God is the only one who never slumbers nor sleeps.

Habits shape our desires. I desired ramen noodles more than good, nourishing food because, over time, I had taught myself to crave certain things and not others. In the same way I am either formed by the practices of the church into a worshiper who can receive all of life as a gift, or I am formed, inevitably, as a mere consumer, even a consumer of

Our bodies are instruments of worship.

Hilton challenged this man to stay in his profession and to embrace “a third way, a mixed life combining the activity of Martha with the reflectiveness of Mary.” Hilton concluded that “such a spirituality needs to be consciously modeled and taught.”

We need this kind of embodied beauty—smells and bells—in our gathered worship, and we need it in our ordinary day to remind us to take notice of Christ right where we are.

it exposes my idolatry of ease, my false hope in comfort and convenience—I just want things to run smoothly.