Courage for the crisis comes from the commonplace.”

—Di Murphy

Like clogs upon the pinions of thy plan
We hang—like captives on thy chariot-wheels,
Who should climb up and ride with Death’s conqueror;
Therefore thy train along the worlds’ highway steals
So slow to the peace of heart-reluctant man.
What shall we do to spread the wing and soar,
Nor straiten thy deliverance any more?

The sole way to put flight into the wing,
To preen its feathers, and to make them grow,
Is to heed humbly every smallest thing
With which the Christ in us has aught to do.
So will the Christ from child to manhood go,
Obedient to the Father Christ, and so
Sweet holy change will turn all our old things to new.”

—George MacDonald
Diary of an Old Soul

Every smallest thing. I’d rather not bother with the small stuff. It’s so, well, small, not to mention insignificant. And unrelenting. But as Di Murphy once said in a children’s sermon, almost two decades ago now, “Courage for the crisis comes from the commonplace.”

If I don’t find a way to live my daily life, with its relentless round of dishes and diapers and the never-ending pile o’ laundry, with hope in the Lord and without complaining or disputing, how will I live in the face of genuine suffering? How will I hope in the Lord then? MacDonald is right: The only way to soar on the wings God has given us is to humbly heed every small thing He places in our path.

God is, after all, in the details.
 
 

Florilegium comes from two Latin words, meaning flower (flor) and gather (legere). Legere is closely related to the Latin word for reading (lectio). So a florilegium is literally a gathering of the flowers of reading: a collation of the best words, the best books.

I hope you’ll come by every Friday to gaze on some beautiful heart-mind-and-soul flowers. (And stop in at Susan’s, too, for another bouquet).