October : 2023

ordinary things....

it was the best sort of Louisiana fall day....chilly, cloudy, dreary. my chimes have sounded lovely today. we placed flowers on my grandparents' graves and ate some of the last of my uncle's Italian sausages. our remembering game is strong, moving into this trio of days: Halloween, All Saints, All Souls  - "that thin place in the year that acknowledges how close the worlds are, even when they seem piercingly far apart" (Jan Richardson.) 

a close friend's father passed away this morning. a good, kind man. a difficult loss.

the worlds do seem very close. I feel the pull. 

this world is on fire..….

ordinary things keep us grounded: surrounding myself with nature, with music, with making dinner, doing laundry....seeing a hurt and responding to it. ordinary things keep us holy. show us our own flaws and needs so we're too busy dealing with those to worry about other people's.....

Bridging the holy and the ordinary keeps us real....useable, practical, humble. Cause we don't only see all the flaws....the Spirit helps us see the beautiful places in us....and in others....right in the muck of the brokenness (of the world and in ourselves.)

“The "show business," which is so incorporated into our view of Christian work today, has caused us to drift far from Our Lord's conception of discipleship. It is instilled in us to think that we have to do exceptional things for God; we have not. We have to be exceptional in ordinary things, to be holy in mean streets, among mean people...... that is not learned in five minutes.” (Oswald Chambers)

50 years is not so long but is more than 5 min:) learning in doing, in reading, in observing, in listening, in resting, in thinking hard about some things and choosing not to think so hard at all about a lot of foolish things!! in being surrounded (and loving it!) by alllllll sorts of people (what a privilege). in lighting candles and praying for all who sorrow and struggle in these precarious days....