Skip to main content

Ordinary is my favorite kind of time...


Ordinary is my favorite kind of time.  The church year has festivals and really special occasions.  Then there are the days in between.  Once for a children’s moment, I asked two friends to help me.  They are REALLY good friends because they said, “yes,” then asked what they needed to do.  One dressed up like an angel.  The other dressed up like a rabbit.  It was late spring, and the children were not out of school yet, so we had a decent crowd for the children’s moment—that was about 5-10 at our small Missouri church.  I asked the children if they could guess my favorite time of year.  It wasn’t my birthday.  I gave them a hint—a diminutive angel walked down the side aisle very gracefully. No, it wasn’t Christmas.  Then a 6 foot + bunny hopped down the other aisle.  Yep, not kidding! No, it wasn’t time for the Easter Egg hunt.  They gave up. Do you? 

Ordinary time is my favorite time of the church year.  Do you know why?  It is because that is the “living with”   time.  We hear the stories of Jesus living with his friends.  We get to know who he was and how he lived.  We get to think about how Jesus is with us today.  I do love the “big church moments” when we remember the seminal events of our faith, Christmas and Easter,—without them we wouldn’t have those in-between-times.

A very dear friend died unexpectedly last week.  Her family and friends gathered and remembered.  We thought about the fun times, the hilarious moments we said or did crazy things, but it was the quiet times I missed.  I thought about sitting on a balcony watching the waves.  I missed watching 2 periods of Blues Hockey because we couldn’t stay awake.  We’d meet for dinner then drive over to Seventh Street to sit on a porch for 15 minutes and just check in with “the kids.” Those were the Jesus times—the times when we remembered who we were and whose we are.  Yes, the big moments are memorable, but I miss the ordinary time.

Spend some ordinary time with your children/family/friends this summer.  Come to FIG (families in the garden) on Wednesday nights and have a picnic, feed the birds, grow food for the Food Pantry.  You will hear stories of Jesus living with his friends.  You will get to know who he was and how he lived.  You will think about how Jesus is still with us today.  Spend a half hour, forty five minutes, or any amount of time on your way home or after a long day.  Make space for some “in-between-times.”  Those are the Jesus times—the times when we remember who and whose we are.  I’ll see you in the ordinary time, and my very dear friend Shari will be there, too, in spirit.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

And on the seventh day...

Figure 1 http://www.montreat.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Mountains-2-400x250-300x187.jpg We think of “Sabbath” as a time to NOT DO something.  We stop.  We wait.  We rest.  We sit.  However, that is a lot of work!  I think of Sabbath as “making a space.”  It is an active choosing, remembering, and prioritizing a holy space for God.  It is less about “letting go” and more about “leaning in” to the Breath of the Holy Spirit.  In this context Sabbath is a return to our making.  You see, in the beginning “the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7). It is the breath of the Lord God that stirs dust into human.  It is the breath of the Lord God that makes us living and gives us a life.  Therefore, “Sabbath” – a time for rest and renewal, is an opportunity to reach for that breath of God which gives u...
Post a Comment
Read more

What shall I give Him, poor as I am...

We made it! Christmas is over!  Well, not quite yet, it isn’t.  There are those pesky twelve days of Christmas.  The celebrating could go on and on, if we let it! Goodness, the tree is looking dry and empty without a load of boxes and bags underneath it. The ornaments that were hung with surprise, joy, and fondest memories now look somehow out of place.  Can we for one moment stop, and think about this?  Think about that first rush of joy when a new child is born, when you first really felt the presence of the living God in your life?  What about the first time a young Sunday School class looked at you in awe of the wonderful stories you were telling them?  That moment sparkled with hope that was bursting with possibility!  Here and now in the “ bleak mid-winter ” of post-New Years, to borrow from  Christina Rossetti and hymn 144 in the Presbyterian Hymnal Glory to God , we find ourselves in the sleep deprived, post-adrenaline rush, vi...
Post a Comment
Read more

This summer be a FIG and DIG

Be a FIG and DIG This is one of those days when you think you are doing one thing, and you end up doing another.  I thought I was going to be writing about “BALANCE,” you know—“to everything there is a season.”  Instead, I have spent the morning doing some study about fig trees in the Bible.  Yes,  I said “fig trees,” those things that cover Adam and Eve’s nakedness and signs of  the Hebrew People’s abundance and plenty during King Solomon’s time (Genesis 3:7 and 1 Kings 4:25).  The stories most often retold about “figs” in the Bible are the account of Jesus cursing the tree that does not bear fruit, and the parable of the gardener bartering one more year during which he will work diligently to make a fig tree produce fruit.  I looked at 44 instances of “figs” which are medicine, food, abundance, sweet, shade giving and a long lived symbol of peace,  and  I found the parable of summer.  How did I miss this figgy morsel?  It...
Post a Comment
Read more