We are now in the season whose only distinguishing feature is how many Sundays we are from the Feast of the Epiphany.

The second Sunday after the Epiphany, the third Sunday after the Epiphany, the fourth Sunday…. (you get the idea).

We call this season Ordinary Time. I probably shouldn’t even italicize or capitalize it as it’s not even really a season; it simply is what it says - ordinary time. It is the time when there is not much special happening.

We get two stretches of ‘ordinary’ time in our church calendar: now, after the Epiphany, and then a much longer stretch after Pentecost.

I think that we desperately need this non-season between seasons, the filler that ordinary time provides us. In a culture that is always chasing the biggest, the best, the most, whether it is in entertainment or our everyday lives, ordinary time is a refreshing, grounding palate cleanser.

It reminds us of the truth that we do not always need to have (or be) the biggest, the best, the most. Most of our lives are ordinary, maybe even boring at times. That is OK. It is more than OK.

The spiritual practice and benefit of boredom is highly underrated.

Without the ordinary, how could we have the extra-ordinary?

I pray that in this stretch of Sundays counted by the distance from the Epiphany, we may all relish and rest in this ‘ordinary’ time. I pray that we find it as an opportunity to remember that God is in the ordinary, too, in the common and everyday (and sometimes boring) rhythms of our lives.

Thanks be to God!

CG+