“God comes to you disguised as your life.” Paula D’Arcy

Do you find yourself waffling between looking for the next big thing out there somewhere or being disappointed that life is passing you by with its ordinary minutes ticking along unseen? Do you ever wonder if your Maker cares about both your dreams and your despair?

We can stumble through our lives without ever noticing their simultaneous smallness and huge significance. Our good God cares about both. He lives and breathes in our ordinary making those moments extraordinary by his presence. This is true in our happiness and our pain.

I wonder what might happen if we paused to listen to the music of our quotidian life and noticing its song? I’m thinking about the garbage truck on trash day, the twist of the kitchen faucet, tea kettle whistle or whirr of the coffee grinder, familiar footfalls on the stairs, the laugh of someone you love, or their tears.

It seems too easy not give our ordinary lives enough credit for how remarkable they are. We want excitement, to make a difference, to change the world, to overcome hardships spectacularly. But what about the small, hidden beauty of God’s breath on it all?

The last season of Ordinary Time, between Pentecost Sunday and Advent has me thinking along different lines, less about the heroic events that turn history with their significance and more about the small, commonplace, easily overlooked days. These are the days in which we grow and rest in the mundane. But these are not disposable days. These are days of deep significance, as they are the actual hours where we are becoming who we are in this world. The days of becoming.

Ordinary Time is the longest season in the calendar of the church. It represents the liminal times between high seasons when we pause to notice the everyday life of Christ as he walked the earth in blood and bone, fully present as a human yet with his eye on his heavenly Father. Traditionally, we read about the life of Christ in one of the Gospels.

From what we know from the gospels (Luke 2), Jesus spent most of his days living an ordinary life, following Jewish Law, celebrating the feasts, living in a family, obeying his parents, learning a trade. Granted he performed miracles, but mostly he enjoyed life with a small group of men and women on the outskirts of villages, towns, and hillsides. He seemed to grasp God’s power surging through his life as he lived a plain life in his hometown place among his people.

When I read about him in the bible, I see he ate meals with people in their homes, he stopped to talk with people along the way wherever he was traveling. He paid attention to the sick, the forgotten, the outcast, and the little children. He doesn’t seem to be looking over their shoulders for something better, for someone more powerful of visible. He asked questions and let them ask questions. He was listening. He taught and lead and loved. Always, he was just and kind.

He noticed the trees, the wildflowers, birds, crops and their seasons. He noticed human nature and puffs of longing in unspoken words. He was funny, sad, angry, and sleepy. He got hungry and frustrated. He got sand between his toes. Even after his resurrection, he built beach fires and roasted fish for his friends.

We have the same call to be a human with God’s thumbprint on our lives.

“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you:

Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work,

and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering.

Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.”

Romans 12:1

Have you ever thought of your ordinary life being a significant offering to God? Not the things we hope to do one day, but the very things we are currently doing. Not the things we do for God, but the things we do with him at our sides and flowing through our veins.

I made a short list of ordinary things I did yesterday and the day before.

• I forgot to return the overdue library books, again.

• I walked to my favorite black-bellied pond, noticing the cattail leaves had turned green and new goslings had been born.

• I talked with Peter and his dog Coco about honey bees.

• I scheduled a window washer.

• I called my mama. She didn’t answer.

• I ground the dark roast coffee beans.

• I waved to my neighbor who was painting his fence.

• I cried and prayed for my friend in the hospital.

• I changed my grandson’s diaper and rocked him to sleep.

• I toasted bread and swept crumbs off the counter.

• I ran the forgotten trash out to the curb.

• Her face lit up when she saw me.

Frederick Buechner calls this the music of our lives,

“Listen to the sounds, listen to the music of your life. Listen to the voices of the people you live with, listen to the songs that they sing. I don’t mean the song they sing –– tra-la-la –– but I mean the music of their voices. Listen to the slamming of the screen door. Listen to the patter of feet walking back up the path. Listening to the turning of a tap in the tub, because that is in a very profound and touching way the music of your life. It is the song out of time that sings to you. Keep in touch with time, not just the rush and tumble.”

One of the truths inside Ordinary Time is the way we think of time. As humans made in the image of God, we do in fact have one foot in counted time and one foot in eternity. Those times seem as far apart as east from west, and as close. For God is already present and speaking in our world, in our lives, in our souls. The only difference in our hearing it.

We are such hurried humans in a loud and fast-paced world. It will take a pause from what Buechner calls the rush and tumble. It will require paying attention, waking up to recognize his voice, listening to God’s tender call. It will take trusting that God is speaking and listening to us - the story of the whole Bible and Jesus’ life.

I offer you three ways to practice savoring your remarkable ordinary life. These fall along the lines of stop, look, and listen to your life and God’s movement within it.

First, take a walk outside as often as you can. Go without any input but the song of the great outdoors. (Translation, go without earbuds, podcast, book on tape, or talking people.) If you can’t always go alone, pile the kids in the stroller and let them teach you to notice and frolic and struggle on hard days. Enjoy God’s creation and let it speak to your soul. Listen for the quiet that settles the noise inside you. Notice the season, the sounds, the weather, the smells, and how you feel. If a walk is too much some days, pause to look out your window or open it and just listen. Notice what you see, hear, smell, taste or feel.

Second, choose a day and write down 10 ordinary things you did yesterday or the day before. Write them in a single sentence in no particular order, but definitey not chronological. Include what you notice on your walk or window gazing. Circle a few that catch your eye. Notice where you felt close to God or far away. Ask what invitations might be arriving for you to accept for a closer look. This is your chance to respond to God’s invitation.

Third, consider an Ordinary Time journey through the book of Psalms. I have created a guided adventure called “Sky is What We Breathe” where we can read a Psalm a day, consider a thoughtful quote or poem, and answer a reflection question. It includes journal prompts and the weekly rhythm of Sabbath rest. There are two options, as a digital download using your own journal for reflection, or as a physical set of 34 cards, wooden stand, and small blank journal. Both have a resource list for further reading and you can find them in my Cottage Shop.

“Sky is What We Breathe” is a gentle 6-month journey through 150 Psalms that I hope prepares us to enter the season of Advent with a keener heart for God’s love.

Any one of these spiritual practices can be opportunities not only to know about God but to experience his Holy Spirit’s movement in your life.

Noticing Your Remarkable Ordinary Life