Writings of a Beholder 🌿 7.7.23
These sacred ordinary days
These Sacred Ordinary Days
Summer to me sounds like lawnmowers mowing and AC units running to keep up with the Indiana afternoon heat.
It sounds like birds chirping and ocean waves rolling and adventure planning. Summer sounds like laughter with my favorite people on a back deck while steaks sizzle on a grill. It sounds like the rhythm of feet hitting the sidewalk for early morning walks before the sun rises too high and the day becomes too hot. Summer sounds like filling up coolers with ice and bubbly waters to go sit beside a pool and read a book.
Those are my sounds of summer. What does summer sound like to you?
Just like the earth has her seasons, so do our souls, and as I enter into the wild heat and abundant green of an Indiana July, I’m pausing to ponder how my soul is shifting this summer season.
As it so happens, summer also falls within the liturgical season of Ordinary Time, also referred to as The Season After Pentecost. If you’re not familiar with the liturgical calendar or its seasons, allow me to explain. The liturgical year, or the church year, consists of six liturgical seasons beginning with Advent, then moving into Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Eastertide, and then ending with the longest season in the church year, Ordinary Time.
I’ve really loved getting to know the liturgical calendar over the last year because it’s essentially an invitation to walk with Jesus through every season. Each season offers a fresh opportunity to commune with Jesus and really enter into the life of Christ as He lived it here on earth. The seasons have different meanings and focuses but the central theme is always a deeper communion and relationship with Christ and a deeper call to our own spiritual formation.
As I said earlier, we are in the season of Ordinary Time, which begins the day after Pentecost (on May 29th of this year) and ends the first Sunday of Advent.
Ordinary Time, unlike the other five church seasons, doesn’t really have a central focus. During Advent, we wait with anticipation and hope for Christ to come. During the Christmas season, we celebrate Jesus’ arrival and the gift of Him. Epiphany is all about focusing on the Light of Christ and where we see the Light dawning in our own lives. Lent is where we deeply reflect on the death of Christ and the sacrifice He made with His life to set us free. Eastertide is full of joy as we rejoice in victory over the risen King!
And then there’s Ordinary Time, where we are invited to live and lean into the ordinary with Christ. I heard it said once that Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, and Eastertide are the story of Christ’s journey here on earth, while Ordinary Time is the story of God’s people learning how to walk closely with Him.
It’s no coincidence, I think, that Ordinary Time doesn’t have a central theme or purpose like the other liturgical seasons. The season is much like its name describes it — ordinary. But what I think is interesting is the invitation presented for this church season. The invitation to a slower pace of living and communing with God as we walk out our faith with Christ in the days leading up to Advent.
Ordinary Time is the season when we are called to focus on living and walking daily with God and with people, paying attention to our own spiritual formation. During these weeks, as the liturgical scholar, Leonel Mitchell puts it,
"we celebrate the time in which we actually live -- the period between the Pentecost and the Second Advent."
When explained that way, Ordinary Time doesn’t sound so ordinary, does it?
At least, it doesn’t to me when I read those words back and realize that it’s the ordinary moments in my days, my weeks, my months, and my years, that make up a whole, big life. It’s every small, ordinary, unseen, and unspoken moment that no one else probably notices that forms and shapes and molds me. The question is not, “Am I being formed?” but rather, “What is forming me?”. Because all of life seeks to shape us, and we become what we most pay attention to.
The ins and outs of daily, mundane life can make me feel directionless, purposeless, and even sometimes, useless. I can’t see how the five minutes of conversation with a widowed neighbor might somehow impact her day. I can’t see how the words and actions of love and faithfulness over the course of everyday seconds and minutes could add up to much of anything at all, really.
The dishes piled up in the sink that need to be washed… again.
The laundry that needs folded.
The living room that needs tidied, the meal that needs cooked, the toilet that needs cleaned, the boxes that need shipped and the dogs that need fed.
How do we find God here in the midst of all that’s ordinary and sometimes boring and leaves us feeling, at times, disinterested?
Maybe we’re asking ourselves the wrong question. Maybe it’s not about finding God here, but allowing God to find us here — right here, in the middle of changing diapers, and waking up early only to rush out the door, late again. Right here, where heaven looks more like sticky hands and tension and soft, half-smiles.
It’s Henri Nouwen who said,
“Now I wonder whether I have sufficiently realized that during all this time God has been trying to find me, to know me, and to love me. The question is not “How am I to find God?” But “How am I to let myself be found by Him?” The question is not “How am I to know God?” But “How am I to let myself be known by God?” And, finally, the question is not “How am I to love God?” But “How am I to let myself be loved by God?” God is looking into the distance for me, trying to find me, and longing to bring me home.” (The Return of the Prodigal Son)
Maybe here, in all the ordinary mess of things, I can choose to let myself be found and known and loved by the God Who weaves Himself within the small, seemingly mundane things.
Maybe my faithfulness in the little moments is more important than anything else I do on this side of heaven. Because maybe, just maybe, the little moments are making me.
So here in this season of Ordinary Time, as we lean into living and communing and growing with God and with people, may we remember that God is the God of the mountaintop, the valley, and everything else in between.
May we not glance over the smallness of things, but remember that these little moments are making up our whole life.
May our ordinary lives reflect our faithfulness, or better yet, the faithfulness of the One Who cannot fail us.
And as we clean our toilets, wash our dishes, raise those babies, and fold the laundry, may we remember to look up and notice the million little miracles flowing forth from the ordinary life we’ve been given.
I know what summer sounds like to me. What does it sound like to you?
What do you hear when you lean in to listen to the humdrum of these sacred, ordinary days?
All is grace.
With you on the journey,
Celia
Life Lately
A Breath Prayer for Your Weekend
breathe in:
Whoever is faithful with little.
breathe out:
Is also faithful with much. (adapted from Luke 16:10, CEB)
*if you’d like to learn more about the practice of breath prayer, check out this blog post I wrote titled, How to Use Breath Prayer.
Resources & Good Things to Pick Up
If you’d like to learn more about the liturgical seasons, this book is a wonderful resource: Welcome to the Church Year by Vicki Black
I think you might enjoy this podcast episode from Emily P. Freeman on the gift of obscurity and remaining faithful in the small things: Faithfulness, Fame, and the Gift of Obscurity
Grab some breath prayer cards, a journal, a candle, and other contemplative resources from my Etsy shop: The Beholding Co.
Grab a copy of my Bible study, You Are Beloved: a 21-day study on how to root your identity in the love of God, over on Amazon. And if you’d like a free 3-day sample of the study, reply to this email and I’ll send it right over!
My friend and licensed spiritual director, Kari Bartkus, offers an 8-week journaling program for those who want to process their grief and trauma with God within the safety of blank journal pages. I’ve completed the program myself and can say confidently that it was incredibly impactful and healing: Journal Gently
An Invitation to Pause & Reflect
A regular practice of reflection helps us recognize what’s going on beneath the surface of our souls so we can name it in the Lord’s presence. Because as we learn to name what we feel, what we need, and what we long for, we’re also learning to discern the Spirit’s sweet, gentle voice within our hearts and lives.
Take a few moments today or this weekend to journal or contemplate with the Holy Spirit the following question(s) or prompt(s):
In this season of Ordinary Time, how might you practice everyday faithfulness?
What’s forming you in this season?
How is Christ being formed in you?
I completed the 19th Annotation in May. Since then, I've been struggling a bit in finding a rhythm in my spiritual walk. I've felt dry, like I'm out in the desert. This picture of ordinary days speaks to my heart here. I love the question, "What is forming me?" I just met with my spiritual director, and she said that Jesus wanted to meet me in the desert. Your quote from Henry Nouwen speaks to this. I'm finding that the desert isn't a bad place to be if Jesus is there with me. As you said of ordinary days, [it is] "the invitation to a slower pace of living and communing with God as we walk out our faith with Christ..." Jesus is showing me that there is beauty and fruitfulness in the desert. As I stay in fellowship with him there, I never have to be concerned with being dry or thirsty, because he is Living Water for me.