bishop's perspective
Don't underestimate the ordinary:
It's extraordinary
We write books, tell stories and create monuments to people who do extraordinary deeds. We may be obsessed with the spectacular in our society.
But I am increasingly impressed by people who do the ordinary work of cleaning school restrooms and motel bedrooms and busing tables in restaurants. I am equally moved by faithful Sunday school teachers and nursery workers, people who mail the weekly church newsletter and those who arrange the altar flowers. Often they are nameless to us yet unpretentiously do their jobs week after week after week.
Many know the story of Thomas Carlyle, who labored intensely for months on volume one of “The History of the French Revolution.” He gave his perfected manuscript to his friend John Stuart Mill to review. Carlyle considered it a masterpiece. Unfortunately, the next morning Mill's maid mistakenly threw the one and only copy of the manuscript into the fire. Carlyle was so depressed he vowed never to write again. Some feared he might even take his own life.
Then one day he observed a bricklayer going about his work – one brick at a time – doing ordinary work in a rather methodical way. In that moment Carlyle felt God was speaking to him – to write again, just one page at a time. He did. Out of that dedication, he re-worked an acclaimed manuscript. It is the same dedication I saw on my recent trip to Liberia, where ordinary people are doing mundane, ordinary things to put their nation back together.
Most of us will not build mega churches. Few will have significant titles. We may despair because we don't do extraordinary things. But it is extraordinary to find people who pray every day, who consistently do tasks assigned to them, who show up on time for appointments, who give regularly to God's work through the church, who can be counted on to attend worship, who do ordinary deeds with extraordinary compassion and love.
Sometimes we Christians seem boring simply because we are so consistent, dependable, and yes, “methodical.” In fact that's where we United Methodists get our name: We methodically attend to the means of grace and acts of mercy. And frankly, that is absolutely and magnificently extraordinary!
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