Prayer for the Ordinary

O God, who are the light of the minds that see You, the life of the souls that love You, and the strength of the thoughts that seek You, enlarge our minds and raise the vision of our hearts, that on swift wings of prayer, our spirits may reach You, the eternal wisdom, who are from everlasting to everlasting, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
- St. Augustine

It is an ordinary day you might say, as mundane as a Monday. Yet I would persist that no day is ordinary. I have in my grasp a day to take hold of, to appreciate the gifts that God has given me.Though I do have to work at certain times each day during the week, I get to choose what I do with my time outside the office. What I choose to do with that time is important. Even at work, it is important. The everyday day is the only day like it. There will never be another day that is this everyday.

I know that I sometimes fall into the trap of saying that a day is ordinary, dull, mundane. Yet, through the day I noticed the birdsong outside my office window, or I walked to the library for lunch, or I shared a meaningful conversation with someone, or I wrote a poem, etc. I don't think these things are ordinary, because they all hold a piece of beauty. True, radiant beauty. I think more so if I say that a day was ordinary, I am trapping myself inside the cultural views of what is ordinary and not, and losing sight of the eternal perspective. 

C.S. Lewis tells us in "The Weight of Glory" that we have never met an ordinary person. We don't talk to mere mortals. I know from my own self that we have to work to maintain this sense of the eternal. When I am able to do that, it's magical. Everything around me becomes enchanted and reminds me of God's gifts. Suddenly the tree-lined road I drive everyday becomes a tunnel into the enchanted forest. The lake is the swans' neighbourhood, and they have errands to run and lessons to give (they seem very busy a lot of times).

May we look with new eyes of appreciation of the ordinary. For what you see everyday and who you talk to everyday, nothing is ordinary when we view it with an eternal lens.