an Ordinary Day

My days seem very ordinary and yes, I will admit, at times boring.  We want life to have meaning, to be fulfilling, exciting perhaps, and yet I find that when I turn my mind to the endless search for meaning I get exhausted, when the exciting happens it is simply a conglomerate of many ordinary moments, and what is fulfilling is seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary. 

The sun's rays touch the leaves and make them almost transparent. The glitter of sun dancing on water as it ripples always draws my eye and keeps me - mesmerized. The sun's rays brashly warming and lighting the evergreen branches that stretch over the compost illuminating the translucent wings of wasps and dragonflies that are drawn to the warmth. I'm often caught by splashes of light in my ordinary world and it is because I have witnessed the light that I come to the end the day content and able to enter the darkness in peace.

Light also illumines my interactions with people. The smiles of welcome or goodbyes, both exhibiting the desire that we find each other well in our beings, the unguarded look of being pleased, the dancing eyes of a mother watching her newborn child, the pleasure in the eyes of parents as they speak of their grown children, the connection of heart because we have stopped to converse, the hope that shines out of one's bewilderment and grief.

The light of the eternal - God's light in us, in the earth, in the ordinary.  It is here to bless us, encourage us, and remind us that God is present in and amongst us. These splashes, glimpses or outright beams of light I often refer to as "God-lights" and as I pause to "examen" I see how God takes my ordinary day and turns its many facets around and around arranging them into blessing.

I've chosen two things to share with you.  The first is a poem by John O'Donohue which speaks of the ordinary day.  Perhaps it will encourage you to think through your day and come out with a realization of the holy.  The second is a painting I call "Through the Valley" - it is a somewhat abstract landscape but if you begin in the bottom right corner you can enter the dark valley.  As you make your way upwards and through the valley perhaps you will see the "God-lights" on your way.

The Inner History of a Day                                           
    by John O’Donohue

No one knew the name of this day;
Born quietly from deepest night,
It hid its face in light,
Demanded nothing for itself,
Opened out to offer each of us
A field of brightness that traveled ahead,
Providing in time, ground to hold our footsteps
And the light of thought to show the way.

The mind of the day draws no attention;
It dwells within the silence with elegance
To create a space for all our words,
Drawing us to listen inward and outward.

We seldom notice how each day is a holy place
Where the eucharist of the ordinary happens,
Transforming our broken fragments
Into an eternal continuity that keeps us.

Through the Valley

Somewhere in us a dignity presides
That is more gracious than the smallness
That fuels us with fear and force,
A dignity that trusts the form a day takes.

So at the end of this day, we give thanks
For being betrothed to the unknown
And for the secret work
Through which the mind of the day
And wisdom of the soul become one.

— from To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings, by John O’Donohue