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From Dave Tomlinson,Ìýwriter and vicar at large:

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We all have our passions: one of mine is making coffee – which pleases my wife, no end. However, it’s not just the final product that I love, but the entire process – the smell when grinding freshly roasted beans, tamping the coffee in the portafilter, watching golden liquid drizzle into the cups, steaming milk to a creamy sweetness then carefully pouring it into the coffee. For me, this is not chore, but ritual. And when for some reason I can’t do it, the absence feels like a hole.

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It’s only when routine things are snatched away that we realise their significance – like when I found myself in hospital some years ago thinking I might die and wishing like heck that I could return to the everyday rituals that modestly (sometimes boringly) fashioned my existence.

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I reckon we mostly associate ritual with religion, but it’s much broader than that. Indeed, in my experience, some of the best rituals are not explicitly religious. For me, the most meaningful ritual is rooted in everyday life – enacted with the grateful realisation that I have a dog to walk, a job to go to, friends to email, a child to read stories to – or whatever it is that sometimes feels like a chore but is really what brings meaning to life.

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It’s not realistic to feel happy all the time; to be constantly grateful for life’s little blessings. But I reckon it’s not a bad thing, occasionally, to pause and acknowledge them. Which is why some people say grace at meals or cross themselves before eating.

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Personally, I really like the practice of our friends Rob and Aimie who always begin a family meal by clashing forks across the table as a conscious and fun act of gratitude for the goodness of food, friends and ordinary life. It’s like a toast – not with glasses, but with cutlery!

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For me, to treat routine activities as ritual is a way of seeing the bigger picture behind them: to recognise that life is more than the sum of its parts, and even the most commonplace tasks and occasions add to and enrich the whole.

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To that, I gratefully raise my (lovingly crafted) cup of coffee!

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