Ordinary

 September 8, 2020

The larger part of the Christian liturgical calendar is devoted to what is called “ordinary time.” The special seasons of Advent, Epiphany, Lent, Eastertide, and Pentecost run approximately from late November to mid-June. The rest of the year is ordinary time.

I think it’s fitting. We love special seasons, celebrations, those moments that break up the monotony of day-to-day living, but the reality is, for most of us, life is largely ordinary. We celebrate birthdays and anniversaries, mourn at funerals; perhaps we look forward to the beginning of baseball, basketball, hockey, football, racing, but day by day, the bulk of our lives are spent doing ordinary things—going to work, cleaning the house, mowing the lawn, doing the dishes, raising children. Even if we go out to eat every Friday night, the regularity of these activities renders them pretty ordinary.

Ordinary gets a bad reputation. We shun Lake Wobegon, “where every woman is beautiful, and every child is above average.” We are told we must exceptional, but deep inside, most of us know we are unique, just like everyone else. If very few rise to the pinnacle of their respective fields, why do we fret about being ordinary unless it means for us that we live lives unnoticed and unappreciated. This is not to say we shouldn’t work hard and strive to be the best we can be, but rather to not overlook those days when nothing seems to happen, when it feels like we’re spinning our wheels, when illness or circumstances have conspired to seemingly put you on the shelf for a time. God is at work in ordinary time, too.