The Ordinary

"...but the ordinary is the miracle.
Ordinary love and ordinary death,
ordinary suffering and ordinary birth,

the ordinary couplets of our breath,
ordinary heaven, ordinary earth."

-- Derek Walcott. Tiepolo's Hound

Everybody wants a miracle. A stock market miracle, a sports miracle, a miracle of conception, a miracle from Mother Teresa or God or Mickey Mouse -- it doesn't matter. Just give me a miracle!

OK. Here it is. Today. Right now. The ordinary miracle of life and all it entails. Nothing fancy, nothing special. Miraculous nonetheless.

The challenge we all face is to see, feel and experience the miracle rather than get lost in our heads, lost in our emotions, lost in our unconsciousness. The world-as-miracle perspective is not one that is supported by our scientific, materialistic, consumer culture. And so, if you choose to see the ordinary as miraculous, you will always be "in this world, but not of it."

And that's a good thing. Not grounded by, not attached to, the dominant cultural perspective. Free of mental, emotional, and social baggage. Let today be an ordinary miracle. It already is.