"...'few of us will be a Washington or a Wilberforce' .... And we do not need to be. Our callings will take us to different places, to different relationships and different responsibilities. Our lives feel more ordinary, and that is the way it ought to be." (Steven Garber, The Fabric of Faithfulness)
And oh! how very ordinary it feels, when it does not feel intolerably difficult. This is the way it ought to be?
I've been deeply challenged this semester by my course in Christian Spirituality, and by reading and listening to Jean Vanier, and by great devotional writers like Thomas Kelly and Jean-Pierre de Caussade and Kathleen Norris and Brother Laurence, and by the book from which the above quote is taken to remember again the holiness of each moment, to allow my faith to flavour every last crumb of my life. It is hard sometimes--maybe even most of the time--to love reality, as Vanier puts it, and find that God is present in the midst of it, but I am convinced that this is the substance of real hope.
This all sounds rather cerebral at the moment, I know, but I am working to let these truths become practical all over again. Learning and re-learning: this is life.
2 comments:
This quote really struck me too, Mel. Thanks for sharing it. I think sometimes we get caught up in the big miraculous nature of God - He is awesome, and marvelous, and wonderful. He can do anything. I wonder if from that we concur that our lives need to be that way to if they are Jesus-filled? It certainly seems like many people in the Christian culture connect with God through those big moments (which is cool, and I do too). I think there's much more to be said though for experiencing God in the ordinary. Living a life that way seems much more Jesus-filled than anything else...
It's true, eh? Those "big moments" communicate the grace of God to us, but ping-ponging from one spiritual high to the next leaves really misses the point, doesn't it? Richard Foster calls it "the religion of the 'big deal.'" He goes so far as to say that modern Christianity's preoccupation with "big churches, big budgets, big names" amounts to idolatry. Strong words, but I think they are true!
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