Ordinary Time

Hello friends,

I'm over my rant. Back to thinking about a spiritual path through these unusual days.  Yesterday was the first Sunday after Pentecost, the beginning of our longest liturgical season.  We will have green hangings on the altar until the first Sunday of Advent, sometime next November.  The season of Pentecost is called 'Ordinary Time' in our tradition.  The scripture readings for this season focus on the life and the words of Jesus, so we get an extended opportunity to sit with the lessons and parables he gave us to teach us the ways of God's kingdom.

I can't remember a time when the days have been so ordinary.  We are retired, so are not struggling with the competing demands of children, jobs, household tasks, and summer entertainment.  We are as content as a couple can be to honor our ages and stay at home most of the time.  We spend our days reading, playing games, working crossword puzzles, eating well, working in the yard, and, of course, walking the dog. I've enjoyed some horse time when it isn't too hot.   I am also making my way through a pile of household projects that I've started and not finished, 😜, an unfortunate habit of mine.  I hope to come out of isolation with things in better order around here. Our lives are unexciting and slow now, each day melting into the next.

As a sort of undisciplined spirit in most ways, I always have several books going at once.  Sometimes they converge on a theme to the point where I detect a message from my buddy, the HS.  Three books on my side table right now are: The Quotidian Mysteries by Kathleen Norris, Spiritual Direction by Henri Nouwen, and The Mystic in You by Bruce Epperly.  Norris's book is about how the everyday tasks of keeping house can become holy time if done with intention.  This particular Nouwen book is about how to engage in deliberate spiritual direction, as an individual or in a group.  The Epperly book, which I just started, describes the life and theology of twelve mystics from a variety of faith traditions, along with suggestions for connecting with their spiritual practices.   The common theme that opens each of these rich books is that we have to be still and make room in our minds and hearts if we want a closer relationship with God.  This fits well with our summer of home time.

While I'm intrigued by making expansive room in my life for all things holy, my dearest hope is that I will be permanently altered by this unprecedented time of quarantine. I can already feel the ground shifting in my purchasing habits.  I have long 'wanted' to stop participating in the consumerism so central to our culture. Fear of the corona virus has kept me out of stores, and cleaning our closets and drawers has reminded me how we truly have a great plenty.  It takes time to break or form a habit, and I plan to keep the habit of simply buying what we need when we need it.  Bye, bye marketing schemes.

My three authors also include plenty of reminders to live in gratitude.  I live an enviable life.  At the moment, our health is good.  We have access to healthy habits and medical care.  We have enough income that we can live simply without worry.  I have a lovely family; we care deeply for each other.  I have plenty of the world's goods, an abundance actually.  So this is my 'ordinary'.

What is 'ordinary' life for those who are underprivileged?  For people who are unemployed. For those who go without, especially children who go to bed hungry.  For all who lack access to housing, medical care, good education.  For the addicted.  For the sick.  For those whose lives occur in the path of violence.  For those whose 'ordinary' is dirty, abusive, traumatic, destitute.  

How can life in our country be improved to the point that everyone has a respectable 'ordinary'?  The questions that need to be asked and addressed are complex.  There will be disagreement about solutions. The privileged, including me, will have to buy in to any substantial change in our economic structure. Age old biases and discrimination must be unraveled. We must learn to see the 'other' as a beloved child of God in order to even have the conversations.  The path forward is not easy or comfortable, but it is at the heart of our baptismal covenant.  It seems like the height of hypocrisy to ask that my heart be opened to God without asking for the wisdom and courage to act on what I may learn.  Open my eyes and ears, Lord, and make use of my hands and feet in humble service that "thy will" may be done "on earth as in heaven".