Words and experiences get thrown around often without people knowing the meaning. ‘Sacred’ is one of those words. We use it in church to talk about sacraments and all the churchy stuff pastors and priests do, and that seems to make it steps removed from average folks. Even when you look the word up in the dictionary there seems a line between ‘them’ and ‘us’ when it comes to items and actions designated as ‘sacred’.

That distinction isn’t necessary, and it certainly isn’t how Jesus lived.

To make something sacred, or holy, is a choice, not a designation. The Bible is not “holy” because it is an item beyond our daily lives. It is “holy” because collectively we have decided that it is. It’s still just a book.

The same practice can be used in our regular lives, and by recognizing the ‘holy’ or ‘sacred’ in our day to day, it makes both prayer easier and it helps us feel better about mundane tasks.

One of my great spiritual inspirations is the character of Father Mulchay from the tv show M*A*S*H. One episode has him mixing cement for the floor on their operating room, and he’s singing to himself while he mixes. The look on his face shows that he is experiencing joy in the moment. He is experiencing God. He understood service was needed, no matter how messy or forgettable, and he treated it as a moment of worship.

He made that choice.

And that choice is available for all of us.

It takes only a small bit of effort to choose to make the mundane task into a moment of prayer or worship, to make it sacred, and that is something we can choose to do.

And once we do that, we can start to look around us to find other moments of the sacred. They are everywhere. Picking up something a child has dropped. Folding laundry in preparation for it to be used again. Doing dishes that will be dirtied by people having a proper meal.

All ongoing tasks are opportunities to be seen as sacred. And once we make that mental shift, the joys in life are easier to find.