Although we haven’t been following the lectionary readings for Sunday worship this summer, it is worth remembering that this is the season of Ordinary Time. This is the space between Pentecost and Advent in which we are neither immediately anticipating Christ’s birth nor death. Easter has happened. Pentecost has happened. And now it is Ordinary time, and life is happening. And life is ordinary. And yet, if we are willing to pay attention, it is permeated by all those things we celebrate and observe in the heightened seasons of the year – birth, death, resurrection, Spirit-gift.

If the spiritual life does not consist of honoring the ordinary and finding the holy in the common, I’m not sure what value there is in it. “This, now,” is what we are given. I don’t know why it’s so hard to remember this. My mind races ahead and faces back but forgets what is present, doesn’t notice the immediacy of things given. The gift is given, and its wrapping is the events and people of the day. It is ours to receive.