Moving Nostalgia: Finding God in the Ordinary

In anticipation of moving, I have been left feeling nostalgic. The sheer anticipation of moving in two days is making me look back on every moment and want to press “replay!”  It does not help that my room is empty, and all of my boxes are packed.  It probably did not help that I went to print out pictures and looked back over the past three months.  That’s when it all hit.  Pictures with friends, graduation, San Francisco, Montreat, and ordination came popping up making my heart hurt.  Each picture was such an amazing moment that I still carry with me, but can never be replicated.  None of those people will be in the exact same place again.......and it made me want to smile at the image captured, but also cry that things are changing.

Here are some of the moments... 

Graduation and leaving amazing friends!

Missing the "yawning" moments when I there are two fantastic people next to me and an awesome view twenty feet away! 

During this time on the cusp of change, I have been reminded there is something holy about the daily tasks of our lives.  Holiness happens not when we are planning the major events of our lives.  We experience God unknowingly most of the time in the moments that we do not capture.  In the customary tasks we often take for granted until they are suddenly gone.  Stopping by on an impulse to chat with a friend and then staying for the next two hours.  Holding a baby.  Sitting on the floor to read books with a toddler.  Weekly walks and runs.  Classes each day.  Instinctively picking up the phone to recount the details of your day.  

I did not realize how precious many of these habitual activities meant to me, how they fed my spirituality until I was suddenly faced with change.  Sure, I will create my own new routine that will soon be second-nature, but this move has allowed me the gift of seeing what I often cannot see in my own routine-driven world: it is the small things that make the difference.  We meet God when we least expect it: when we are rushing around doing daily routine or our marking off our to-do lists only to be confronted with a burning bush.

          So today I miss the routine, the average days that I had at seminary and this summer.  Because it is in the average that we experience Emmanuel: God with us, not just on the exceptional days but always.