A warm house and breakfast waiting...

What is devotion?  What does that mean?  

No, I don't want the definition out of a dictionary.  I wonder about this.  You see, I am married, and I have been for about 12 years now.  I love my wife dearly.  No, I love her fiercely.  Yet, it is tough to try to sustain yourself on such an intense feeling.  Sometimes the mundane dulls down the flames to some really nice embers...

There was a time where I thought such a state was utterly wrong.  I felt as though true love and devotion should always be maddeningly passionate.  Of course, this was long before I was married myself.  I listened to a married man tell me these things, and I dismissed him out of hand for such silly talk.  Now, I feel that I have a little better notion of what he was trying to tell me.  

My Grandfather has been dead now for...  nearly 20 years.  As he was a father figure to me, I find myself thinking of him often.  He was married to his one and only wife for more than 50 years, right up until the day he died.  His widow, my spiritual giant of a grandmother, left us in the summer of 2007 to join him...  She never remarried; his until the end of her days.  

One might think that this is devotion, and it is.  It is a beautiful story.  Sharing your life with someone is devotion, but it still seems too abstract to me; too theoretical.  I find myself wanting some kind of how-to manual, something more nuts and bolts.

Over those long years, Grandma and Grandpa developed their habits of living with one another.  It happens to any couple, I suppose, and it is here that I feel the embers are kindled.  You see, after Grandpa retired, he diverted a good deal of his attentions to taking care of Grandma.  He awoke every morning and made her breakfast.  In the long Minnesota winters, he rose early in the morning, descended the stairs into the basement, and stoked the wood stove to ensure a warm house for Grandma when she arose.  A warm house and breakfast waiting...  

There is a beauty here that makes me think I am getting close to an answer.  What could be more common than bacon and eggs in the skillet?  What could be more matter-of-fact than starting a fire in a cold house?  Yet it is not these activities that define this devotion, but the intention behind them.  You decide that you will give yourself to someone through thick and thin.  You make up your mind that you will serve them and meet their needs as best you can.  You may find yourself in great and terrible straits, clinging to one another.  Sometimes it's as simple as getting up and trying not to burn the bacon.  

For some reason, this resonates with me.  The everyday things imbued with the deep dignity of a steadfast heart: the common sanctified in love, the heroic sacrifice of the dutiful life.  

One winter morning, Grandma woke up to a cold house.  She rolled over in bed, to find his body present, but his spirit gone.  Devoted to the end...