Friday, December 17, 2004

Ordinary

My kids ask me what I did today. I always tell them the same thing:
"I woke up, I went to work, I came home, I ate dinner, I'm going to bed." Pretty ordinary existence. It doesn't sound like an environment where I can "be all I can be"....

What makes life "extraordinary"? What circumstances do I have to manufacture to attain my
"all I can be-ness"? What will lift me out of the mundane and dullness of my routine existence?

Maybe being all you can be is accomplished simply by paying attention. Maybe it is just noticing what you see when you open your eyes. Maybe its as simple as paying attention to what you say to those you work with and for, who you choose to pay attention to or ignore throughout the day, how you regard your labor, and whether or not you give thanks for your meal and your roof and bed. Ordinary is dull. But the dullness is within us: dull of hearing, dull of seeing, dull of passion for life's gifts and unimaginable complexity.

If we but live conciously we lift up our eyes to the infinite horizons of the creation and all of its magnificence and wonder. And if we open our hearts we will know the most extraordinary
experience of human existence: to fall on our knees and give thanks to the Creator of it all.