The ordinary Monday

"Let me hear of your steadfast love in the morning, for in you I put my trust. Teach me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul." — Psalm 143:8

The town is quiet this morning the way it always is on the Monday after the Fourth. The smoke and the noise are done and the flags are still up and the trash cans along the road are full and nobody is in a hurry to empty them and that is all right.

I am at the table and the coffee is the same temperature as the kitchen, which is warm, and the prayer this morning is the kind that does not ask for anything because there is nothing pressing and the quiet is enough.

Biscuit is on the porch. He has forgiven the weekend. It took him two days to come out from behind the chair and I do not blame him because the fireworks this year were closer than they have been and I could feel the house shake with some of them.

Monday is laundry day and I am glad of it. There is something about sorting whites from colors and running the machine and hanging the sheets on the line that puts a week back in order. The holiday interrupted the rhythm and the rhythm wants to come back and I am going to let it.

Ruby keeps a collection of prayers at her kitchen table. You can find them here.