I’m back in Wexford, awaiting the start of my second year with Teach Bhríde. I arrived in Dublin this past Thursday after a fairly uneventful travel experience, thanks be to God. While driving through town with Fr. Denis and Fr. Barry, I realized that it doesn’t feel like much has changed since I left. There are some new things, like the flowers in our garden that finally bloomed, and the houses across the street that seem to be almost finished. Most things feel the same though: the house, still featuring decorations that were left up, and some of my favorite shops in town.
The last few days have been pretty quiet. Amidst sleeping off the jet lag and unpacking, I’ve been trying to figure out how to fill my time. So far, I’ve been cleaning. Washing and drying sheets, folding towels, removing cobwebs from the window sills, putting dishes away, making beds, and getting spooked by a few spiders.
Needless to say, I wasn’t sure what to write about for this blog post. Who wants to read about all of these mundane chores that I’ve been doing? I wouldn’t! But then I remembered a quote I came across last year from St. Teresa of Avila: “God walks among the pots and pans.” I had never heard it before, but now I think about it all the time. The quote reminds us that God is there with us even when we’re doing the ordinary and seemingly unimportant tasks, when it feels like very little is going on in our lives.
And God has been with me throughout these run-of-the-mill, pots-and-pans moments of my first few days here in Wexford. While I’m listening to oldies on the Bluetooth speaker I found in my room, carrying it around with me all day so the house doesn’t feel quite so empty. When I made a mental note to buy more shampoo and toothpaste at the store, and then found both of those things in a box I’d left behind. When Teach Bhríde XI fellow Kati and I went for a pint in town and listened and laughed as some, ahem, rather inebriated, patrons sang the same verse of “Dirty Old Town” on repeat.
While I can be a pretty patient person, waiting an unspecified amount of time for things to start happening is not my favorite. I’m eager for my community members to arrive, to chat with daily mass goers and parish staff that I’ve missed, and to get started on small projects I’ve been thinking about over the summer. But each day I’m trying to remind myself to be patient and enjoy these quiet moments, and to recognize God’s place in all of them. And until more reunions and first meetings and adventures begin, I’ll keep looking for Him among the pots and pans.
