Treasuring the Ordinary

Scrapbooks may be becoming a thing of the past. Almost everybody can capture a person or event with their smartphone. These digital pictures will no doubt eventually disappear into cyber-space.

What brought me to dust off the many photo albums on my shelves was to honor the memory of my recently deceased step-son. I wanted to collect some printed photos to send to his children, my grandchildren. I still haven’t finished the task; it was too emotional. The good thing was that the experience became nourishing food for thought.

Here’s the thing about scrapbook photos: they’re taken to memorialize significant celebrations – mostly happy – with friends and family. We’re all together: eating, playing croquet or cards, turning cart-wheels, blowing out birthday candles, sporting a diploma.

I mused: what about the ordinary times? Is there anything memorable about people going about their everyday tasks? For that matter, what about this very moment (already gone!) as I’m able to type these words, encouraged by Beethoven in the background? Such a non-event, we might think, is hardly worthy of being captured and framed.  

Well, perhaps we don’t need to take a picture, but the moment is worth capturing within our spirit. For it is of such moments that a life is made.

If we could only become more aware of what each moment contains! If we could only know that the grace of God is packed into every second of our existence, that it’s all important, even what might at first seem dull, unappealing or difficult.

The ability to see with the eyes of the heart is what St. Ignatius called seeing God in all things. This is what Thérèse of Lisieux meant in her discovery that everything is a grace! These saints – and many others – knew what it was to see behind and beyond the commonplace, and to recognize that the commonplace is no less than the extraordinary  and dazzling presence of God. It’s really all we need.

This moment as I write and as you read, is much more than ordinary. It can be one moment out of many that all together bring us to a greater understanding of how God is acting in our life. This now is a little embellishing grace note in the symphony of our lives: precious, fulfilling, and worthy of being created and noticed.

Author: Rosalie P. Krajci

Rosalie P. Krajci, Ph. D., is a Benedictine Oblate of Mt. Saviour Monastery in Pine City, NY. She is retired from two careers: as a language teacher and as a consultant in human resources management. Her third and most rewarding career is as a spiritual director and freelance writer. Rosalie and her husband Tom raised seven children. Now widowed, she lives in the Finger Lakes area in upstate New York. View all posts by Rosalie P. Krajci