Underneath the Falling Apart

by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM   January 19, 2025

Sometimes it seems as if the Holy One has to deliver more than a gentle nudge to get our attention. This was my experience recently when several forms of household breakdown or domestic disintegration occurred within the space of one week.

I’ve been living in my sunny apartment for fifteen years now. Most of the donated furnishings have lived here far longer than I. Some, like the sheer voile curtains on the many large windows, have witnessed occupants come and go over several decades.

Recently, when I could no longer ignore their dusty appearance, I took down the living room curtains and washed them. When I removed the curtains from the washing machine, an unexpected epiphany: the curtains were now shredded into dozens of small particles. (I’ve learned since that three years is the average life span of voile. Who knew?) But at that point, confident in my unknowing, I proceeded to then wash the kitchen curtains. Disintegration once again. And as often follows, not long after I purchased and ironed and replaced all the window coverings, my ancient iPhone showed signs of a serious decline. Can you guess the rest of that story?

Everything, including things that disintegrate, can be food for soul work. Gratitude is a spiritual practice that extends even into our connection with the inanimate world. When multiple objects break down or cease functioning unexpectedly and simultaneously, we’re led to ask, what’s happening here? What’s underneath the falling apart? Aside from the practical need for replacements, what are we meant to notice, pay attention to, and learn?

We normally don’t give much thought to the simple possessions that surround us. But with prayer and reflection, we may discern from the shredded curtains or the worn-out phone that some of our familiar ways of doing and being have completed their purpose in serving our needs. With their collapse, we may notice something shifting in us, in our perspective, in the way we move through the world, in our awareness of all that is around us day to day.

But before we discard these no longer useful inanimate objects, one more step: let’s thank them for their service, voicing gratitude for all the ways they have filtered sunlight or opened us to beauty or carried the voices of people we love over time and distance. With the poet Pat Schneider, let’s savor and appreciate the ordinary companions of our everyday living:

The Patience of Ordinary Things

It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they’re supposed to be.

I’ve been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?

Is there anything breaking down or nearing an end or calling for a fresh look in your life at this moment? If so, what might it be inviting you to reflect on at this time?

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
You may wish to place before you a simple implement of your every living: a cup, a plate, a kettle, a spatula, a placemat, and more.
Reflect on the object’s patience and the “kind of love” it shows you day after day.
Promise that going forward you will use it gently and with awareness of its service.
Give thanks to the Holy One for all the living and inanimate creation that serves you.

Featured Image: Laura Rivera, Unsplash

NOTE:
As I write, I’m painfully aware of the thousands of people displaced by wildfires in California. Added to the terrible loss of life is the loss of home and safety and a sense of well-being, with not even the smallest memento salvageable. To all who are bereft, please know that our Mining the Now community holds you in prayer and in tenderness as we breathe compassion and healing energy to you and to all of our suffering neighbors throughout the world.

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