Facebook and Twitter: those are social media platforms I mostly use. LinkedIn – I have an account, but don’t find it very helpful for my work. While my younger friends all use Instagram, I haven’t gotten on to it. Perhaps that’s because I don’t take many pictures, either of myself or the things I’m doing.
Social media is deceiving. When scrolling through postings, it seems like everyone has an exciting and dynamic life. Every meal looks like some kind of high-level gourmet cuisine and everyone’s always doing yoga at one of the natural wonders of the world. For those who just post pictures of their animals, I’ve had neither a dog or cat as talented as pets pictured on social media.
We don’t want to admit that most of us just have ordinary lives. One day is often the same as the day before and will be about the same as the day after. Each day, I get up around the same time, I make coffee, pray, answer email, review documents prepared by my students, attend meetings, do some writing, cook dinner, shower, and sit on the couch feeling drained at the end of the day. At some time during the day, I get some exercise, often between meetings hitting the treadmill or stationary bike in the family room. Since I work from home, I’ll go for days only seeing my partner, the mail carrier, and the crazy neighbor across the street who stands on his porch and howls randomly. (Some people find him annoying. I find that his howling breaks up my day.)
I don’t have a bad life. I’m respected and considered successful. I live in a nice home. I make enough money to pay my bills and save for retirement. I have a life partner who’s dedicated to me and a number of intimate friends around the country. But like everyone else, my life is pretty much routine.
While I write about the spiritual dimension of life, what I find that most people don’t really understand is that living day to day grounded in the spiritual dimension of life is just like the rest of life: it’s ordinary. Just as my day to day life isn’t filled with social media photos that go viral, neither is the spiritual dimension of my life. I pray in the morning for twenty minutes or so, meditate in the afternoon for another twenty minutes or so, and then spend another 10 or 15 minutes in prayer and reflection before sleep. Most of the time, nothing special happens. There aren’t fireworks. Angels don’t appear with messages in strange languages that I magically understand. And the skies have never opened – and I’m glad because I don’t want a hole in my roof! Yes, often in prayer and meditation, I become aware of a deep and overwhelming presence, but if I sneeze, that awareness will probably disappear. When I experience that presence, it’s gentle, quiet, and calming. Yes, I am thankful for those experiences.
The spiritual dimension of our lives is transformative, but not because it takes us out of ordinary life. Instead, the spiritual dimension of our lives opens us to an awareness of something just noticeable, to differences barely perceptible. Our day to day routines take on a quality of purpose. Making dinner for my partner and me, even though time-consuming, becomes meaningful. The day to day routines which fill the hours and minutes subtly blend together to form a life which I value. The purpose, the meaning, and the value aren’t because ordinary life is filled with social-media ready moments. Instead, the ordinary becomes vibrant because in each moment there is an opportunity to encounter something more than what is apparent. That’s what spirituality is all about.
Next time I do yoga on a mountain top, I’ll be sure to take a picture of it. Watch for it on Facebook and Twitter! In the meantime, I’ll probably be sitting in front of my computer screen wearing faded gym shorts and a ratty t-shirt reading a student’s dissertation for the third or fourth time, marking corrections, and encouraging better work. If I’m rooted in the spiritual dimension of my life, I won’t focus much on the disorganized writing, but encouraging a student to become her best self as a competent researcher. That’s spirituality in ordinary life. It is a gift.
Photo by Visual Content on Foter.com/ CC BY
I find it disappointing at times because I see that God has taken me through so many things in my life; everything, in fact. But the little things that are daily and ongoing keep me from enjoying true joy. I find little to no joy since my husband passed. Why are we able to trust him for the “big things” but not so much for the mundane?
Deborah: I’m truly sorry for the loss of your husband. While many people say that grief passes in time, that’s not true. We can never fill-in what was lost. But, in time, we find ways to allow our lives to come back together without our loved one. But the bonds we shared always remain along with a tenderness in our hearts from the love we shared. I want to encourage you to be patient with yourself as you heal and to find support from others. Life has changed significantly for you, but it hasn’t ended. Warmly, Lou