Mount Laundry has grown into the North American Laundry Range. The dishes are piled above the level of the spigot. The grass is blocking the sprinklers. Laundry! Dishes! Mowing! These are only the most obvious jobs that run in an endless cycle! There are many more, and they are never done! I never get out of the loop!

I feel like I’m moving in circles, never free from the pattern. It’s not just chores. I feel it in my daily schedule, my relationships, even going to church. Round and round we go! And if there’s no purpose to this ride, I want it to stop and let me off.

But then I took a walk this morning, and I saw some purple morning glories winding up a rail, ever higher so they could bloom in the sun, and I remembered a time-lapse video I’d seen of a vine growing up a pole. It was moving in a circle, whipping round and round, rushing upward and spreading new leaves and flowers as it rocketed into the light.

I thought of the laundry and dishes waiting at home, the familiar turning of each day into the next, and maybe this sounds weird, but I imagined this activity in time-lapse, and as we lived in these circles of chores, schedules and relationships, I imagined our house rising up into the morning light, as though our repeated patterns were growth. It was going somewhere.

And then I thought about Jesus living in time with us, in his body. He slept and woke. He was hungry, ate, and was full. He had to clean his clothes, again. He had to wash himself, again. He had to make and spend money. He lived in circles like we do, but he knew the purpose of it all! It’s not a spinning, aimless tornado; life is a turning dance, and Jesus is in the lead. Jesus designed us to live in cycles, and he lives them alongside us, repeating the steps of a dance that is headed into the Light, while we grow and flower as we turn.

The Great American Laundry Range will level out, as will the horrible dish pile, only to grow again as I live in my human circles, but I’m seeing that the more I can accept the repetition as natural to me  - and a gift - the more I can relax and enjoy the dance - up and up I go, round and round with Jesus.

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