ordinary

The Master's Artist: The Glimmer of the Other

October 12, 2010 By heather Leave a Comment

I’m up at The Master’s Artist today reflecting on an artist’s work from an art festival my husband and I attended a couple of weekends ago.

A glimpse:

"The artist photographed mundane, even dead, objects–weeds, grass, dead
branches. He zoomed in until you could barely identify the original
subject. Before he printed his photographs, he prepared the canvas by
painting it with a glimmery, shining substance. When you viewed the
dead and mundane, the glimmer of the other shone through, giving the
ordinary something beautiful and extraordinary, imparting something of
the essence of life."

Read The Glimmer of the Other.

Filed Under: anthropology, art, humanity, mundane, ordinary, photography, theology

Fairy Dust in My Ordinary Day

January 14, 2010 By heather 5 Comments

Today, I received one of those treats born on fairy wings.

It happened on my way to yoga–an ordinary day in an ordinary car taking my ordinary route. The classical radio station started playing Lehar’s Gold and Silver Waltz. For those unfamiliar with the piece, it’s sprightly, delicate, and at times, mischievous. In other words, the perfect soundtrack.

At an ordinary light at an ordinary, albeit busy, intersection, something had gone awry (the work of Puck, perhaps?). The light had stopped working. Cars, most on their way to work, some to drop off kids at school, treated the six-lane intersection like a stop sign.

And that’s when I noticed it.

All of these cars, normally infused with Dallas impatience and road rage, waltzed, a sprightly, delicate waltz.

The intersection became the ballroom, and cars lined up and took their turns. One, two, three, one, two, three. Light, on your toes. One, two, three. Not a misstep.

We danced to Lehar’s Gold and Silver Waltz.

And then I came to the other side of the intersection, and the moment had ended. For me, at least. The dance continued behind me.

I suppose if it had not been an ordinary day, I wouldn’t have noticed the fairies making mischief.

Filed Under: giggles, ordinary, waltz

Ordinary Days

January 4, 2010 By heather 5 Comments

Kirsten wrote about the beauty of ordinary life. This is something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. In any story, the resolve we seek is not the high emotions of the climax. It is the (sometimes assumed) ordinary days. In them lies the happily-ever-after.

In the liturgical calendar, we have two periods of ordinary days. The first follows Epiphany, and the second period occurs after Pentecost. After the high emotions of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, after the extreme sorrow and celebration of Lent, Passion Week, Easter, and, finally, Pentecost, we have ordinary days. In these days, we live most of our Christmas life.

Paul tells us to rejoice in everything and to be content. This joy and contentment occurs in our beautiful ordinary, as Kirsten calls it.

Here’s why I’ve been noodling on this lately: world-wide, nationally, and personally, uncertainties threaten our joy and contentment. My response–escape. I want to sail away (I’ll give you a moment to finish the Styx chorus). I want to bury my toes in the sand of a white beach and my thoughts in a book.

But we can’t live in the escape. We live in between the anticipation and hope of our Savior’s return and the joys of our ordinary lives. To the rhythm of our rosary beads click-clacking between our fingers, we run errands and wash dishes and change sheets. We care for the widow and orphan. We dance to a favorite song. We sip our wine and chew our bread. We work, bringing good to the earth through our businesses. These are the sacraments of our ordinary days, bringing grace and beauty in ordinary elements.

Filed Under: beauty, liturgy, ordinary, story

The Cleaning Fairy

January 3, 2008 By heather Leave a Comment

The cleaning fairy missed my house.
I thought I had scheduled her
for after our New Year’s shindig. It’s the busy season for them, so you
have to call in advance. And being the considerate person I am, I even
put away the leftover food before going to bed after the party.
But two days later, and no fairy.
Coffee cups and punch glasses and wine goblets and plates and trays litter my kitchen counters and my table.
Where have all the fairies gone?

Filed Under: cleaning, daily, ordinary

The Most Difficult Prayer

January 1, 2008 By heather Leave a Comment

Matthew 11 has always been a difficult passage for me. John the
Baptist, a faithful preacher for the Lord, is in jail for his work for
Christ. In his cell, he begins to wonder, perhaps even have a shade of
doubt. He sends his disciples to ask Jesus, "You are Christ, right? I
mean, this isn’t for nothing?"

Stop. This isn’t the difficult
part. In fact, this part comforts me. Even John the Baptist had his
doubts. Maybe we should call them semi-doubts. He’s not renouncing
Christ. He’s not taking back his message. But he needs some reassurance.

Jesus
answers his question. "Yes, John. You can trust me. You will be blessed
because of me." Which is a serious thing because imagine facing God and
being wrong about a thing like that.

But then here’s the
disturbing part. Jesus waits until John’s disciples leave before
bragging about him. Jesus tells the people around him, "You see this
John? He’s one of the greats! Heck, his mom should be downright proud.
She raised the best around! He fulfills prophecy. Pretty cool, huh?"

Why did Jesus wait for John’s disciples to leave before saying this? Who more than John needs a pick-me-up right about now?

Jesus
answered the question about who Jesus is–the Christ. But no more. No
pats on the back. At least, not right then. Hold fast, John, Jesus
said, but then he reserved his greatest words for after the time when
John would hear them.

WHY!?

You see, I’m an affirmation
person. I need–no, I should say desire–those words of affirmation.
"Good job" goes a long way in my world. It’s much easier to serve when
you hear that. I hate cleaning house, but if my husband notices the
spic and span, it’s worth it.

SO WHY COULDN’T CHRIST GIVE JOHN THIS ONE THING?

Which brings me to my hardest prayer.

Lord, make me insignificant.

Did I just pray that? Yikes!

Just
the facts: the pride in my life, well it’s big and dark and ugly.
Sometimes I think it looks beautiful. I like to fool myself. Sometimes
I think it’s light, that it carries me like Rudolph carries Santa.

But that’s not true. It’s gnarly and cumbersome and heavy.

And it has to be dealt with.

So, Lord, make me insignificant.

I
hate praying this prayer. It scares me. I always hoped I’d be
significant. I grew up with Bach and Mozart and Beethoven, and I hoped
I’d be one of them.

Sidebar: this past year, I turned thirty. It
wasn’t pretty. From the day I turned twenty-nine, I dreaded the next
birthday. Something loomed about it: at that day, I would officially be
insignificant. What could I point to in my life and say, "I did that!"?

Turns out, I’m not great. But we’ve covered this before. And then again.

Today
is January first, and our heads turn to New Year’s Resolutions (or
Revolutions, as they say in the Blue Lagoon). This isn’t exactly a
resolution. How does one resolve to be insignificant? It doesn’t mean
to stop everything I’m doing. At least, I don’t feel like God’s telling
me to stop what I’m doing. So I’m starting with a prayer. It sounds
simple. "I pray I’ll be insignificant." But it’s the most difficult
prayer I could pray.

Filed Under: insignificance., ordinary, prayer

What If I'm Pharaoh?

September 5, 2007 By heather Leave a Comment

Has the potter no right to make from the same lump of clay one vessel for special use and another for ordinary use? (Romans 9:21)

What if I’m Pharaoh? Or Esau? Okay, so I know that those examples are bad because I know that I’m a child of God. But what if I’m ordinary?
What if I’m not Esther or Ruth or even Rahab? What if my "for such a time as this" comes down to doing the laundry on a regular basis (and believe me, this is not such a time for that).
Free will and predestination are tricky things. My dad explained it to me this way: there are two ropes hanging from a ceiling. One is free will. The other is predestination. On the other side of the ceiling, they are connected by pulleys and levers. We don’t know how. We have to use both ropes to get to the ceiling. Let go of one rope, and you fall. If you look in Exodus, sometimes it says that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. Sometimes it says that Pharaoh hardened his heart. Other times it just says that his heart was hardened. But however it happened, God used it for His glory.
Here’s the thing, though. I want to think I’m special. Or at least, I want to think that God has a special purpose for me, some shining moment. I want to think that He’s going to use me through published books. But what if He’s not going to? What if my purpose is–gasp–ordinary? I don’t want to be the pot that goes to the well everyday for water. I want to be the pot painted with muses and set at the king’s table.
But that may not be the case.
I may be ordinary.
And after all, it was the ordinary vats that held the water that was turned to wine. And it was an ordinary jug that filled and refilled with oil for the poor widow at Elijah’s word.

Filed Under: bible stories, ordinary