Laundry, liturgy and women's work all serve to ground us in the world, and they need not grind us down. Our daily tasks, whether we perceive them as drudgery or essential, life-supporting work, do not define who we are as women or as human beings.

Kathleen Norris
About This Quote

Laundry, liturgy and women's work all serve to ground us in the world, and they need not grind us down. Our daily tasks, whether we perceive them as drudgery or essential, life-supporting work, do not define who we are as women or as human beings. They are not the source of our identity or self-worth. When laundry is our entire life, we are being ground down by the mundane task of cleaning clothes.

When liturgy is our life, we are being ground down by the monotonous rituals of church attendance. When women's work is our life, we are being ground down by the endless demands of housework.

Source: The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy And Womens Work

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More Quotes By Kathleen Norris
  1. The Christian religion asks us to put our trust not in ideas, and certainly not in ideologies, but in a God Who was vulnerable enough to become human and die, and Who desires to be present to us in our ordinary circumstances.
  2. This is a God who is not identified with the help of a dictionary but through a relationship.
  3. I was taught that I had to 'master' subjects. But who can 'master' beauty, or peace, or joy?
  4. Laundry, liturgy and women's work all serve to ground us in the world, and they need not grind us down. Our daily tasks, whether we perceive them as drudgery or essential, life-supporting work, do not define who we are as women or as human beings.
  5. When I was a child, it was a matter of pride that I could plow through a Nancy Drew story in one afternoon, and begin another in the evening.. .. I was probably trying to impress the librarians who kept me supplied with books.
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