I love lists on legal pads because they hold all the thoughts swirling in my head. If you stepped into my home office on this rainy afternoon, you’d find one lounging by my keyboard and mouse, another sitting askew on my analog calendar, and a third one poised to jump into action on top of my printer. On the nearby shelf full of books about the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius, one lingers with ideas of what to offer for my retreatants. The next shelf down holds one secured by a clipboard, gathering goods for blogs, books, and writing client work. In the kitchen, one resides in my weekly folder for menus, recipes, and shopping lists, and another small one is often tucked inside my bag, ready to go out the door when I do. My to-do lists, whether on legal pads, in journals, or on an index card, keep me somewhat orderly and mostly motivated. Though I could quickly type up all the items on a document on my computer, writing lists by hand on the blue-lined yellow pages slows my mind down and helps me catch my ideas. Ordinary thoughts spill out on my ordinary legal pads, reminders of ordinary tasks to attend to in the day and week ahead.
What helps you keep up with the tasks of the day? What helps you face external everyday obstacles or internal daily struggles?
Some things don’t go on lists, for they are habits that simply get done. We take out the trash, sweep up the mess under the table, wash the week’s dirty clothes, and do today’s dishes.
My lists help with items I simply cannot forget. Pay the water bill. Reorder the prescription. Call the electrician. Pick up the stack of books on hold at the library. Swing by the grocery store for apples and eggs. Most days are made up of ordinary items that need attending to that keep life moving forward.
Surprises along the Way
We also find surprises along the way that no list could ever predict. We dance in the kitchen, in the rain, or under the moonlight. We exchange antics that lead to laughter that doubles our bodies over in delight. We feel all the feelings, think all the thoughts, ponder all the possibilities, and rehash, rehearse, and release them in conversational prayer with Father, Son, and Spirit.
We taste fresh tears of lament. We delight in the tender hug of a dear friend. We savor crisp apples and the crunch of leaves under our feet. We sing loud. We listen long. We rise. We fall. We keep going onward, ever towards the life of the Kingdom of heaven by living it out as best we can on earth.
Unexpected Additions to the List
When I think of moments that stand out in my life over these seven decades, there are, of course, monumental ones that shine bright like shooting stars on an ordinary night, or during a meteor shower. I offer thanks for a birth, a graduation, a wedding, a great wonder, or a conversion to life in the Kingdom of God. I lament a death, a tragedy, a wayward path that drains me. Yet, for the most part, life consists of millions of simple ordinary moments.
Calendars help us mark time, don’t they? They remind us of birthdays to celebrate, holidays to feast at, and anniversaries full of joy. They help us face the geography of harsh losses that befuddle our hearts. Time matters, and we don’t want to forget what matters to us.
The liturgical calendar traces Jesus’ life. Advent announces His arrival is on the horizon, while Christmas celebrates Christ’s birth. Epiphany declares the generous love of God to all the world. Lent lets us walk with Jesus through the desert and explore our own deserts and temptations. Holy Week lets us sojourn with Jesus in His suffering, and Easter shouts joyous acclamations of the Resurrection. Pentecost denotes Christ ascending to heaven and the Holy Spirit descending upon God’s people.
Then we reach the long church season of Ordinary Time. Unlike the season from Advent to Pentecost, with bold markers along the way like Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, and Easter, Ordinary Time holds few noticeable events or themes. It’s a time to live out how we wait for His coming again, as Advent reminds us. In Ordinary Time, we reflect on how to become like Jesus as we’ve noticed what the first half of the liturgical year reveals about Him. He showed us how to be alive, alert, and attentive to God the Father and to others. We are invited to mirror Him.
Learning to Live and Love in Ordinary Time
We get to live out what it means to be Christ’s followers in a world that follows its own tail. Here we live out in our everydayness the wonder and hope of resurrection life. We make lists, check calendars, and mark time. Here we deepen our own longing and intimacy with Jesus as we do the normal things of the week. We savor beauty and pray against the horrors that decimate people, places, and things we care for each day. We scrub tubs, fill up birdfeeders, and take a meal to our ailing neighbors.
If there were a signature verse for the Church Calendar’s Ordinary Time, I think Eugene Peterson’s The Message translation of Romans 12:1-2 would fit the bill.
“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.“
We get to embrace God’s doings in our day-to-day comings and goings, in the notes we send on special days, in the lists to keep track of on legal pads, and in the habits we step into routinely each day.
So, how are we doing with that?
Giving the Lists and Our Time to God
Ordinary Time presents opportunities to check in with our soul and reflect on how we are living with the time we’ve been given. We keep going and growing in our life with God in His Kingdom. What offerings are we placing before God, ready to lean into Him in fresh ways? What has us distracted from offering the day and our hearts to Him?
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- Where are we… so absorbed and exhausted in our frenetic pace that we simply aren’t present to the magnificent God we say we want to worship?
- Where are we… so attuned to His heartbeat that we are readily available when the unexpected moment arrives to care for His people and His creation?
- Where are we… grasping at elusive comforts and overwhelmed with fears of failure?
- Where do we… pause to behold the face and heart of another person?
- Where are our… prayers so interwoven into our being that we can converse at any given moment about surprise gifts from God or the sudden loss that throws us for a loop?
- Where have we… forgotten how to dream, to play, to create?
- Where are we… placing our simple ordinary moments as an offering to the God who sent a cardinal to the windowsill, a bright ruby-throated hummingbird to the zinnias out front, or the unexpected sunflower standing tall by the garbage bin?
We are all moving ever forward in the liturgical calendar’s loop towards Advent, then Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, and Ordinary Time and back again to Advent. As we saunter forth, how’s it going as we are invited to bring glory to God and goodness to those along our path as we pass by?
What are you jotting down on a legal pad or in your journal? How are these ordinary moments helping you experience more heart-deep conversations with God? Where is He inviting you to become more like Jesus?
Ordinary Time invites us to grow green with wonder in the moment at hand.
May you find the wonder that’s tucked inside this curve, and the next one, and the one after that. One day we will round the bend and tuck ourselves ever so gloriously into the arms of the Most Extraordinary, Most Generous, Most Loving Father. He is simply waiting for us ordinary, deeply beloved sons and daughters to find our way all the way home.
