The Kitchen V Carrying The Milk (2009)
I recently took a train to London to visit an exhibition of the work of Marina Abramovic. The exhibition got a lot of press coverage because it re-staged some of her early performance pieces which included nudity (even though nudity wasn't the point of these artworks and if you look around the average art gallery there are plenty of naked bodies to be seen).
The word I would use is fearless. Marina Abramovic's stamina and bravery is staggering. She stands holding a loaded longbow in tension - the arrow pointing towards herself. She walks the Great Wall of China as her relationship is breaking up. She allows herself to be photographed after taking the anti-psychotic medicine of the 1970s. She is fierce and angry.
Then something shifts .... the whole exhibition shifts. It’s no longer a noisy show of strength but the stamina of simple tasks and solitude. This is a photograph of Marina in a kitchen holding a pan of milk. Over hours she tries her hardest not to spill a drop. Weirdly, I found this intensely moving. I found myself almost teary over 'not spilt milk'. To see something as ordinary as milk as precious and to care so much that none of it should be lost. To lavish that amount of attention on it reminded me of the love of God. 2 Peter 3:9 says that 'God is patient towards us not wishing for any to perish.' That type of care is not easy, as I am sure Abramovic aching joints attested, it is costly.
The stamina of the simple tasks of caring, peace-making, mercy and love don't get a lot of attention or fanfare. I am reminded of the parents who have to monitor their children's health several times a day or the nurses who choose to work in war zones - changing dressing after dressing. The contemplative nun Theresa d'Avila had a spiritual experience of being lifted up by God while stirring the soup. Soup making is simple, maybe even a bit boring, but it is also nourishing to others and vital to the community.
So in what simple task today - perhaps one that you often dismiss or find beneath you - can you give yourself to? Can you give that task your full attention? Can you take care over it because you don't want to waste anything or because you care about the people it may nourish? Our lives may not be made out of grand gestures of extraordinary kindness or bravery but the stamina of simple tasks. May God be found there.
Suzanne Nockels
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