Ordinariness, to the glory of God

It has been a week of ordinariness: tending to a sink leak, doing my fixed hours of psychotherapy sessions, grocery shopping and meal planning, weekly chores, myriad emails, evening phone calls when I know folks are home, watching Teddy put his face in the water at his last swim lesson for awhile, paying bills, weeding the front beds, finishing an amazing book, and trying to get enough sleep. As I reflect on these unremarkable days, Tish Harrison Warren’s words from Liturgy of the Ordinary came to mind and I had to track down this paragraph to share:

Alfred Hitchcock said movies are ‘life with the dull bits cut out.’ Car chases and first kisses, interesting plot lines and good conversations. We don’t want to watch our lead character going on a walk, stuck in traffic, or brushing his teeth—at least not for long, and not without a good soundtrack. We tend to want a Christian life with the dull bits cut out. Yet God made us to spend our days in rest, work, and play, taking care of our bodies, our families, our neighborhoods, our homes. What if all these boring parts matter to God? What if days passed in ways that feel small and insignificant to us are weighty with meaning and part of the abundant life that God has for us? Christ’s ordinary years are part of our redemption story. Because of the incarnation and those long unrecorded years of Jesus’ life, our small, normal lives matter…If Christ spent time in obscurity, then there is infinite worth in obscurity…There is no task too small or too routine to reflect God’s glory and worth.

Good words to ponder.

Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation