The Extraordinary in the Ordinary

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I take a sip of warm tea, roll my head three times in each direction to hear the crunching, and roll my shoulders three times backwards ~ feeling my body fall into the comfy couch. Truth is truth and yet, in this world of material doings, it can be lost so quickly into the forgetory… and so here are my reminders - God is in every moment.

Thank you The Dress and the Girl for giving me the phrase… and outlining it so beautifully: the extraordinary in the ordinary.

Thank you Illuminata (by the awesome Marianne Williamson) for what I read this morning, knowing I would be writing about this. “Spirituality is an inner fire, a mystical sustenance that feeds our souls. The mystical journey drives us into ourselves, to a sacred flame at our center. The purpose of the religious experience is to develop the eyes by which we see this inner flame, and our capacity to live its mystery.”

So here we are… developing the eyes by which we see this inner flame.

  • "Bean, do you want some more food?" "No momma, I am unhungry, unhungry, unhungry.”

  • Singing along in the car, gesticulating madly with my father, to Strauss’s Blue Danube . (My father who has a form of CTE brought on my a motorcycle accident before I was born and is now part of our homestead with my mother). As I stepped out of the ordinary extraordinary moment I realized I was in a movie. The part in the movie where a man is dying and there is a flashback to being in a car with his daughter and smiling and singing to great music. Or the daughter is dying and she looks back at a glorious ordinary moment with her father.

  • Holding the Dragon as he leans his forehead into mine - touching heads. “Would you like some juice?” “No nank you, Momma. No nank you Momma, No nank you Momma. No nank you.”

  • Chasing the Bean and the Dragon around the island with Rossini’s William Tell overture booming throughout the house. “Chase music!!! Momma, chase music!”

  • “Cowinna” “Dragon.” “Cowinna” “Dragon” “Cowinna” “Dragon” “Cowinna” “Dragon” “Cowinna” “Dragon” “Cowinna” “Dragon” “Cowinna” “Dragon” “Cowinna” “Dragon” “Cowinna” “Dragon” “Cowinna” “Dragon” “Cowinna” “Dragon” “Nank you Cowinna.” “Nank you Dragon” “Nank you Cowinna.” “Nank you Dragon” “Nank you Cowinna.” “Nank you Dragon” “Nank you Cowinna.” “Nank you Dragon” “Nank you Cowinna.” “Nank you Dragon” “Nank you Cowinna.” “Nank you Dragon” “Nank you Cowinna.” “Nank you Dragon” In my head I am telling him: thank you for being part of our family, thank you for being you, thank you for being my son, thank you for this moment, thank you for this amazing life, thank you.

  • “Bean, could you entertain your brother for 5 minutes while Momma finishes up dinner?” “Dragon, do you want to go downstairs and play with gems? “Yea!” Off they go, her hand in his, scooting down the staircase on their bums.

  • “Bean, today was not a very good listening day.” “I know momma, tomorrow I will reset and do better.” “I know you will, my amazing girl.”

  • Being on vacation and snuggling in bed with my daughter. She curls her body towards mine and gives me a kiss on my nose in the dark. I feel her breathing and her soft heavy warmth along my arm.

  • “Shovel! Shovel!” “Yes Dragon, let’s get you the shovel.” For the next hour he is happily engaged with moving, lifting, scraping, molding, sculpting sand with his shovel - blissful at the beach. When we get home he still wants the shovel. The beach shovel, frozen outside in the snow, is cleaned off and now scrapes along rugs and couches.

The present moment. To come back again and again to SEEING the present moment and listening for the extraordinary. Listening to God’s voice in every moment. God’s voice saying, “This is extraordinary. This is extraordinary. This is love. This is peace. This is extraordinary.”

I can find myself falling into the forgetory - thinking that the routine, the laundry, the schedule of smalls, the unfolding of a life is oppressive and relentless. I fall into the rut of telling myself that the ordinary is not enough, that the ordinary is stultifying.

It is only my thinking about the ordinary that makes it so. To remember the inner flame. To see the Divine always. Always.