Ordinary Time

On any given day, in any given setting, we can be surrounded by people experiencing life’s greatest joys or most difficult challenges.  Families anticipating the birth of a child or grandchild, weddings, job promotions – these are such blessed times that we are usually overwhelmed with thanksgiving when they occur.  Tough things like divorce, health problems, job loss, or death bring us to our knees in despair or prayer or sometimes both.  For me, it’s much easier to feel the presence of God in both the highs and lows than right in the middle.   And right in the middle is where I am now.

Life is good.  We’re all healthy and happy.  It’s just one of those times when the everyday demands of life are prominent – no great joy or sorrow – just life.  And I find it’s easy to simply coast along, checking things off my list, rather than stopping to really commune with God.  I’m not sure why that’s my nature.  I just know that when I’m driven to my knees in despair or feel an overwhelming need to raise my hands in praise for blessings, my relationship with God is strengthened.  In the middle, it’s more of an effort.

 One of the Methodist traditions that I love is the emphasis on the church calendar.  There are specific seasons associated with distinctive colors that are observed.  Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter are some of these seasons, and Ordinary time falls in between.  I find the term “ordinary” an interesting choice, but it doesn’t mean common or mundane.  Rather it’s more closely related to “ordinal” or “counted” time.  During ordinary time, we’re moving forward.  There’s just no great fanfare associated with it.  And green, a representation of growth, is its color.

 So maybe I am actually moving forward in this ordinary time.  Perhaps the time I do spend with God is strengthening my faith, even though it doesn’t always feel that way.  Could it be that simply my awareness of His presence is helping me grow in a gentle way?  God is there, and if I’m responsive to that, in a spirit of prayer during even the ordinary, there might just be something extraordinary going on after all.