Saturday, April 4, 2009

Dearest God,

I am living in the middle of beginnings and endings. Some things are ending. Others are beginning. Some things I want to begin. Some things I don't want to end. What I am learning is that you are in the middle with me.

I once wondered what "ordinary" time was in the Roman Catholic church. It seems to me that the ordinary is that time when nothing seems to be happening. The rest of the church year is filled with extraordinary events: Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, Pentecost. Ordinary seems to be the period of the middle.

If I were to break my life down into smaller components, I suspect I would find extraordinary events: births, mountain top experiences, dyings and rebirth, life-giving relationships, ministry, illumunations, revelations, and insights, unspeakable joys and rejoicings, and even more. But probably what I would discover is that most of my life has been lived in the ordinary time, in the middle.

What you have shown is that life is not all about the great and wonderful events that occur. Life is more about how I live life in the middle, how faithful I am, how trusting I am, how cooperative I am, how loving and helpful I am. Perhaps we have it all wrong. Perhaps it is what happens in the quiet times that is truly extraodinary.

O dear God,
show me
the way
to you.
Reveal your life
to me;
for what
I want
to follow
is your life.
I want
to discover
the tiniest
of the tiny
in the ordinary,
the dull,
the nothing-is-happening-right-now time.
I want
to live extraordinarily
in the middle
because I live
a life
of faith
with you.

Love, Andrea