Book Review: The Quotidian Mysteries

quotidian [kwoh-tid-ee-uhn]. adjective: daily, usual or customary, ordinary, commonplace.

The small book The Quotidian Mysteries is the text of a lecture given at St. Mary’s College by Kathleen Norris, a poet and writer.  In it, she thoughtfully considers how spirituality is enhanced by the ordinary.  Most people deny the daily needs of cooking, cleaning and laundry.  But Norris finds the holiness inside it.

• The incarnation as an example of God embracing the human and ordinary
• The Benedictine liturgy as a way to frame the dedication and release of the day
• The grounding of “chores” as a protection against acedia

She spends a section in the middle of the book discussing a poem that she wrote that both expresses the scattered and fragmented view of our culture, and the work of cleaning that brings pieces together and provides order and purpose.  And the whole essay is a bit like that for me, to be honest.  She is not a writer to list her main points and give three examples of each.   The stories of her life, the examples of poetry, the changes of topic are hard for me to follow.  And I don’t “get” her poetry as I do some other poets’. 

But I love her overall theme – God is made clear to us in the ordinary, and we honor Him when we serve the ordinary and appreciate its value.  I recommend this work for someone who has an artistic frame of mind and is feeling weighed down by the monotony of daily life and work.