I’m currently reading a book called Rumors of Another World by Philip Yancey, who is one of my favorite Christian writers. He’s so open and honest and isn’t afraid to ask the really hard questions and to seek out the answers. In this book, he’s asking questions like: Is the world we see all there is, or does this world point to another world? If there are two worlds, a physical and a spiritual, then what difference does it make in our daily lives? How can we see the sacred in the secular?
I bought this book months ago and it didn’t immediately catch my interest. It’s been laying on the floor next to my bed since then, but one night earlier this week when I couldn’t sleep, I picked it up and suddenly found it resonating. Some of his questions are questions I have found myself asking lately, especially what difference does it make? Is just believing enough, or is there more to life than just the ordinariness of day-to-day living?
I want there to be more. I get so bored by the ordinary, repetitive tasks I have to go through every day. I want to experience the extraordinary. But I also know that I’m right where I’m supposed to be. I feel that I have been called to do what I’m doing. I also feel that I’m not called to do this forever. This job is merely preparation for something else, but I haven’t been called to whatever that is yet. So for right now, I’m here, and I have to go through these boring, ordinary things.
How do I reconcile the mundane tasks with the extraordinary that I want to experience? How do I see God’s hand in the things around me? How do I open myself up to allowing it to make a difference in my life?
Maybe it starts with making a conscious effort to look for God, to retain a sense of wonder, and to try to take the mundane things and dedicate them to God. Perhaps after a while it becomes a natural instinct and then we’ll see the beautiful and extraordinary all the time. For now, we get occasional glimpses of the glory that is there, but with practice, and prayer, we’ll be able to experience it.
I think this will be my Lent experiment: to find the glory in the mundane, the sacred in the ordinary...to, in a sense, walk on water.
I bought this book months ago and it didn’t immediately catch my interest. It’s been laying on the floor next to my bed since then, but one night earlier this week when I couldn’t sleep, I picked it up and suddenly found it resonating. Some of his questions are questions I have found myself asking lately, especially what difference does it make? Is just believing enough, or is there more to life than just the ordinariness of day-to-day living?
I want there to be more. I get so bored by the ordinary, repetitive tasks I have to go through every day. I want to experience the extraordinary. But I also know that I’m right where I’m supposed to be. I feel that I have been called to do what I’m doing. I also feel that I’m not called to do this forever. This job is merely preparation for something else, but I haven’t been called to whatever that is yet. So for right now, I’m here, and I have to go through these boring, ordinary things.
How do I reconcile the mundane tasks with the extraordinary that I want to experience? How do I see God’s hand in the things around me? How do I open myself up to allowing it to make a difference in my life?
Maybe it starts with making a conscious effort to look for God, to retain a sense of wonder, and to try to take the mundane things and dedicate them to God. Perhaps after a while it becomes a natural instinct and then we’ll see the beautiful and extraordinary all the time. For now, we get occasional glimpses of the glory that is there, but with practice, and prayer, we’ll be able to experience it.
I think this will be my Lent experiment: to find the glory in the mundane, the sacred in the ordinary...to, in a sense, walk on water.
To see a world in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
--William Blake
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
--William Blake
2 comments:
Shouldn't you be working?.... ;0
I was on my "lunch break". :-)
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