When I was a young girl growing up in our yellow brick house on a little dairy farm out in the country, I spent a lot of time learning the ways of the household, under my mother's tutelage, and the making and keeping of a home. I don't mind telling you that I didn't mind that a bit, being the oldest girl and helping in the care of many younger sibblings, but my heart was mostly out on the farm, in the dairy barn with the smell of cows and fresh warm milk, in the hay barn with the scent of fresh mowed bales of hay, frolicing around in pastures and creek beds and, of course, anywhere near the horses, especially riding one.
All these are fond memories for me, but the one thing (of many) that I have carried with me through all these years is the memory of a little framed picture of The Kitchen Prayer by Klara Munkers that hung above our kitchen sink. I now have this very old picture that belonged to my mother, in my own kitchen. She told me in later years that she had hand-painted the frame in gold, to cheer up the dark wood.
As a mother and grandmother myself, I can only know and smile at the comfort and peace it must have brought her in those days of hardship, lonliness for family far away, and long toil and sacrifice. When I was a young girl doing dishes at the sink, I truly believed she worte this poem because it sounded so much like her. Instead, I later found out, it was written in 1928 by a 19 year old girl in England, working in domestic service.
THE KITCHEN PRAYER
Lord of all pots and pans and things Since I’ve no time to be A saint by doing lovely things Or watching late with Thee Or dreaming in the sweet dawn light Or storming Heaven’s gates, Make me a saint by getting meals And washing up the plates.
Although I must have Martha’s hands, I have a Mary mind, And when I black the boots and shoes, Thy sandals, Lord, I find. I think of how they trod the earth, What time I scrub the floor: Accept this meditation, Lord. I haven’t time for more.
Warm all the kitchen with Thy love And light it with Thy peace; Forgive me all my worrying, And make all grumbling cease. Thou who didst love to give men food, In room or by the sea, Accept this service that I do– I do it unto Thee.
Over the course of my own lifetime, I have said this prayer myself so many, many times, partially out of need for my own strenght and perseverence, sometimes to bring me back to a warm and cozy kitchen of the past, but always to remember my mother before me who endured more than I ever will, and who to this day at age 93, still walks the face of this earth and does her own dishes and cleans her own kitchen. She is a heroine to all those young housewives and homemakers out there who would complain that their work is not so important.
Because it is. The Prayer sums it up and says it all!
~ Gwen of IRISH ACRES
