God in the Ordinary

 Good afternoon.

I haven’t done one of these thoughts for a week or two…at least on Thursdays.  Last week we were at a reunion in Illinois, and this week I spent Thursday catching up on the work I missed while in Illinois.  But there’s always Friday, I guess.

I don’t really have a lot to say even though we spent several days in Illinois or driving to or from that state.  We don’t hurry anymore when we go some place.  We stayed in Des Moines both going and coming back and made the trip a two-day affair each way.  Neither of us can weather those twelve hour road trips anymore with any kind of comfort, so we try to split it up if possible.

There were over 40 at the annual Plank reunion over the Independence Day weekend.  Some have “reunioned” ever since the tradition began some forty or so years ago.  Others come when they can, and we always, it seems, have a newcomer or two due to marriage, birth, adoption, or just a friend.  We welcome all who have good connections with the family and have a good time during the three days we are together.

We generally avoid politics and religion, which, I think, helps everything hold together.  We run the gamut in the family on both of those topics.  And we usually have enough to talk about just catching up on things that those topics rarely come up with any kind of serious nature.  Most all of us respect the views of the others and try not to antagonize or start some kind of conflict.  The six of us siblings made the promise long ago that we would stay together as a family following the deaths of our parents.  And I think we’ve done a pretty good job of that.

It’s the middle of the summer, and that means the heat and often the humidity are higher than a cat’s back when she’s in fighting mood.  We have had a decent amount of rainfall over the past month or so, and things continue to grow and look pretty good outside.  I’m thinking, though, that there will come some kind of hot dry spell…there usually is…before it’s all over and the autumn cool breezes come our way.

I’m not sitting out on the back patio nearly as much as I have been…due to the heat and humidity…and also the mosquitos.  I usually like to do that and listen to the varieties of birds in the area; however, there aren’t as many during the summer…or at least they don’t’ make themselves known with their singing.

I usually can hear a cardinal, a Carolina wren or two, a dove, and sometimes robins and the occasional woodpecker gnawing away on a dead branch somewhere close by.  The spring influx of migratory birds as well as the corresponding fall influx just doesn’t happen over the summer months as birds have found their places, built nests, are raising their young, and carrying on with life and living.

And we are quite often like that.  Sometimes we can take time off and “sing” so to speak by going on vacation, attending a reunion, visiting relatives, or taking on some other special event or thing.  But most of our time is spent doing the usual…the routine…the ordinary events and things in life.  We make our homes livable.  We raise our kids (or help with the grand kids).  We wash clothes, do the laundry, pay the bills, and a hundred other “ordinary” things in life every day.

Most of life consists of the ordinary…the routine.  James Carroll, in a recent book he wrote called “Christ Actually…The Son of God for the Secular Age”, says “The presence of God lies in what is ordinary.”

Skylar Spradlin, writing in an article called “The Power of Ordinary Moments,” says this:  “We should not ignore or neglect the small, ordinary, and simple moments of life.  God doesn’t necessarily flaunt Himself in the big, grand events of the day, but He is working, and dare we say hiding, in the mundane and ordinary aspects of our lives.”

It can be difficult at best to see how God is at work when we are folding laundry, cleaning up a mess on the bathroom floor, or driving to the store in heavy traffic.  But maybe that’s because we aren’t looking for Him there.  Maybe we’re looking for him to swoop down in some kind of majesty and power, and fix our problems with something akin to magic.  But life doesn’t go that way.  It often is the ordinary slogging through our chores and, if you make one, our “to do” list that we encounter God.

Just as the birds in their summer busy season already know, we may not be able to see Him in the ordinary even if we try our best.  But He indeed is there and is loving on you even as you burn the toast or break a glass on the floor.

There is much truth in the line from that old children’s song “He Loves Me Too.”  “God sees the little sparrow fall; it meets his tender view.  If God so loved the little birds, I know he loves me too.”

Blessings,