While F W Boreham pointed his readers to some special spheres where he had found great delight, “the deuteronomy of daily life”[1] was the area he believed was most accessible and offered “a virgin field of novelty and freshness.”[2]Others, like author Elizabeth Dreyer, who have drawn attention to studying the spiritual in the ordinariness of life, have highlighted the way this focus “reminds us that the reach of God has no bounds.” Furthermore, she says, this spirituality which is “located within the human situation” is attractive because it is unspecialized and devoid of any ‘churchy’ connotation.[3]
Australian poet Les Murray suggested further reasons for exegeting the everyday, when he said, “Human order has at heart an equanimity …. Christ spoke to people most often on this level … all holiness speaks from it.”[4]
Geoff Pound
Image: “the deuteronomy of daily life” was the area he believed was most accessible and offered “a virgin field of novelty and freshness.” Drinking coffee in the Sudan.
[1] James McAuley, ‘Chorale’, in Les A Murray, Anthology of Australian religious poetry (North Blackburn: CollinsDovePublishers, 1986), 164.
[2] F W Boreham, My pilgrimage, 7.
[3] Elizabeth A Dreyer, Earth crammed with heaven: A spirituality of everyday life (New York: Paulist Press, 1994), 81, 106.
[4] Les A Murray, ‘Equanimity’, Collected poems 1961-2002 (Sydney: Duffy & Snellgrove, 2002), 179.