Right after Luke and Lane were born—so this was early 2009—I read Kathleen Norris’ Acedia and Me, and it was one of those books that just sat with me like a dear friend. Right words; right time.

I wanted to share a passage that has been particularly helpful to me. Throughout the book Norris returns to the idea of “beginnings” and the importance, spiritual significance even, of starting over, repetition, every day – whether in marriage or writing or prayer or parenting . . . beginning again, today.

This is also, interestingly, one of the cornerstones of recovery. We don’t conquer our issues. There isn’t a quick fix. We are always recovering. We are never recovered.

Life isn’t accomplished. Life isn’t arrived at some day. We don’t graduate. We don’t get there. We simply return to the rhythm of grace, each and every day, and trust that the “beginning again” matters.

Norris writes:

“Because it impedes my illusory forward movement, having to begin again can feel like failure. As a writer, I must begin, again and again, at that most terrifying of places, the blank page. And as a person of faith I am always beginning again with prayer. I can never learn these things, once and for all, and master them. I can only perform them, set them aside, and then start over. Beginning requires that I remain willing to act, and to summon my hopes in the face of torpor. Above all, beginning again means rejecting that self-censurious spirit that will arise to scorn my efforts as futile” (184-185).

“We want life to have meaning and we want to be fulfilled and it is hard to accept that we find these things by starting where we are not where we would like to be” (190).

Today, we must begin again. In our relationships. In our prayer. In our vocations. In our self-care.

Today, we forgo the too-tight-jeans because we realize it’s unkind to squeeze ourselves into something so small.

Today, we write a blog post.

Today, we fold the clothes.

Today, we rest.

Today, we sit beside someone we love.

Today, we breathe prayers in God’s direction.

Today, we nurse a baby.

Today, we walk, hike, climb, run.

Today, we make a meal.

If life somehow feels more like plodding than anything right now, take heart, as I am, from Norris’ words. We start where we are . . . and we trust that somehow these small plodding moments hold a tiny trace of poetry.