Just Ordinary
So much of what passes for “spiritual experience” is centered on
peak experiences. For some, it’s a conversion experience or
receiving a subsequent blessing or charismatic outpouring. For
others, the experience involves sudden enlightenment or ecstatic
moments, whether as the result of simply being in the presence of a
holy person or a breakthrough of some kind that involves seeing
beneath the mask that reality wears.
People in every religious tradition experience such peak moments,
some of which have very profound and life-altering, permanent
results. Even people with no particular religious background, no
mystical leanings, and no interest in any organized religion have
such experiences.
The landscape of our lives, just like the earth itself, has its
mountains, valleys, and plains, all of which add color and texture
to living. They give feeling to living. We tend to treasure such
transformative experiences, looking back at them fondly, perhaps
wishing they would recur because they’re never continuous. That
fact, after all, is what makes them peaks.
There is, however, a base underlying our lives, even beneath and
supporting the peaks, that we usually refer to as “the ordinary”.
The ordinary is what bores us, what we want to escape. But could it
be that the ordinary is really the most extraordinary aspect of
life, and what -- or who -- we really are?
Perhaps our trouble is that we’re so busy dashing about after the
next peak that we fail to look closely at the simplest, most basic
elements of life – to pause, to simply pay attention.
- Just standing
- Just sitting
- Just walking
- Just watching
- Just eating
- Just drinking
- Just gardening
- Just playing
- Just waking up
Nothing special. Just ordinary.
