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.
I love the way you wrote about this here. The last paragraph in particular (I hope you don't mind if I quote you back to you):
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.
I had a week recently that was all drama and heightened emotion. And it was all good -- nothing negative about it at all. But I found that after 4-5 days of living in such a heightened state, I was exhausted and cranky. To this, frustration was added since I felt like with all the good news coming my way, I should have been happy.
We need the ecstasy of Christmas and Epiphany and Easter; we need the somber tones of Advent and Lent. But as you said so beautifully, most of our lives are lived in ordinary time, the errand-running and the dish-washing and the laundry-doing.
I really loved hearing your thoughts on this.
Oh, yes . . . we must live here, much as I wish the fairy stories were real and this the fiction (sometimes) . . . and so here is where the real grace is, too.
This post so reminded me of Kathleen Norris's "Quotidian Mysteries" book. Have you read it?
Post new comment