I wrote this in early January during what is considered by the liturgical calendar to be “ordinary time”. So it was more appropriately titled and themed at the time it was written, but my blog was mysteriously defunct with indecipherable error messages, so here it is now. Much, much thanks to friends and family-of-friends for magically fixing the blog.
The second half of 2014 was not the easiest. It was nothing in particular, no major life event, no one particular thing, just a series of events which would have been considered individually as less than ideal, but consecutively added up to a lot of…less than happy feelings. There were certainly plenty of good things, too, but overall, it felt like more became broken than repaired, more hope deferred than realized. Christmas, too, was a strange season – I came down with whatever mutant virus the children are passing around this winter, and worked every day but Christmas and New Year’s Day, and it was the first time we didn’t have a big family Christmas I think ever, and everything just felt a little off. I generally adore Christmas – lights, music, advent readings, Christmas services – but even though I still felt a deep, rooted connection to the “reason for the season”, as it were, the “holly jolly” part of me had a hard time surfacing.
Perhaps it shouldn’t surprise me, then, that taking down my Christmas decorations over the weekend before Epiphany felt like… relief. I am ready for this time, what the liturgical calendar calls “ordinary time” – back to the regular routine, full staff at work, my year-round house decorations feeling sparse but clean after the cozy clutter that Christmas brings. I listen to music dictated by mood instead of feeling like I’m not taking full advantage of the few weeks a year I allow myself Christmas music. I am ready to settle in to the every day, enjoy the small mercies instead of looking for magic around every corner.
Ironically, of course, I am headed to Kenya in just a couple weeks, and the first half of January will be filled with preparations – squeezing in hair appointments and strategic packing and house cleaning and work duties that still must get done. For me, I guess, the preparation for international travel IS ordinary, and not only am I going to a somewhat-familiar place, I get to see very familiar faces, people who KNOW me, who need few explanations or reasons for mood. It is ordinary and extraordinary, these friendships that persist against time and distance and the occasional misunderstanding.
We talked briefly on the phone today – a quick rush of planning in the overlap of waking hours – and remarked on how completely unremarkable our plans for my visit are. I’ve been a tourist there – I’ve done the safaris and the visits to Masaai villages and all that. What I am looking forward to is not the exotic, but the routine and boring – seeing the girls go off to school in the morning, eating dinner around the table together, taking a long walk in a beautiful place and getting to catch up in a way you can’t do through phone or text or email. And sun. SO MUCH SUN. I am desperate for some ordinary time in the sun with people who have loved and continue to love me deeply.
Quote for the day:
“By calling it ‘Ordinary Time’ or ‘Ordered Time,’ we are reminded that human history is part of God’s plan. When he set the sun, moon and stars in place, he also established the natural order of times and seasons. More than that, he did not set the whole natural order running, then step back like the Watchmaker Deity and cease to be involved.” — Father Dwight Longenecker