I started this on December 26 and decided since it is (was) now January 6 as I re-read my initial draft (nice, this word can be pronounced in both the present and now past tenses!), I looked it over to consider if it is worth the finish, and now it is completed on January 7.
At the risk of sounding sacrilegious, Jesus is wondering (in my imagination), “Is it ordinary time yet?!”
I mean…these celebrations are beautiful but can be soooo…exhausting…
So now, it has become January 7, still the “day after” yet another liturgical event – Epiphany.
So I think the title still works…whether the day after Christmas or the day after Epiphany, could Jesus, in our imaginations, possibly be asking, “Can we just get things back to normal now? The celebrations were quite nice…but there is so much more!”
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I think there is a lot to be said for the liturgical calender’s two seasons of ordinary time. In a sense, it is like the dash in that popular writing (shown at end), most of the real workings of life happen in the in-betweens.
One might view ordinary time (the most lengthy) as the long in-betweens – or one might view the biggest celebrations and experiences of Advent, Christmas, Lent, Triduum and Easter as those dashes denoting some in-betweens – I suppose they work hand-in-hand.
I do love Advent and Christmas – but I also find these times also difficult and am relieved and flourish more in the ordinary times. Like everything in the natural world, however, I experience and embrace all the seasons and cycles of nature and otherwise as valuable.
Anyone that gardens, especially in more northern zones, likely understands the natural rhythms and contrasts of coldness, death of plants and coverings of snow which provide what is necessary for the joy that comes in the spring and both the earth (and most people, too) become more alive once again. These rhythms and contrasts then move into other repeated yearly cycles of planting and harvest during the summer and into the fall. I think there is a kind of distilled theology built into creation itself.
During Christmastime, many do extraordinary acts of service and gifting to others – whether donating needed items such as children’s shoes, more freely distributing food to those in need, remembering the needs of those who are elderly shut-ins, or reaching out to family and friends in a variety of extraordinary ways, I think that the deeper things which undergird our lives happen in the ongoing low-level-nitty-gritty of things.
So when I made the humor idea of even Jesus sort of ready for this, I am partly serious…there is so much before us to do in this life and world. I imagine He would be on board with this idea, because it is wonderful to celebrate His – or anyone’s – birth and certainly the birth of Christ is extraordinarily significant in every way, but at the same time to remember that He was born for a purposeful life and each of us are, as well.
So along those longs I can indeed imagine Jesus being slightly and divinely a bit antsy to get on with the extraordinary things that happen in ordinary times.
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When I first drafted part of this on the day after, I thought to include the funny but layered-ly interesting story below:
There is an elderly woman who has become a dear friend and like a mother to me. Almost nightly I talk and listen to her and I just love hearing her life stories over and over.
Some are poignant and some are hilarious.
One of the hilarious ones came to my mind about a big celebration of some sort.
In her younger years she and her husband threw a party and many guests came. This woman said she doesn’t handle even a small amount of alcohol too well and at some point during the party she crawled under a desk, and fell asleep.
Yes the hostess of this party crawled under a desk and fell asleep.
When her husband and others realized she was missing (and they lived in a state where there was deep snow outside and falling that night), the guests went outside with lanterns in search of her.
Her husband said, “she cannot handle alcohol and if she went outside she will freeze to death.”
After lengthy search for her outdoors in the snow during this party, to no avail, one of the guests came inside and happened to notice her asleep under the desk!
Needless to say, the guests were a bit furious, having searched for her in what sounds like almost blizzard conditions and all along she was safe indoors, in some little secret cubby.
I thought this was hilarious, and she’s told versions of it a number of times…always some new aspect that makes me smile.
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Christmas is a time when many if not most people – if they are honest – are under a lot of emotional pressure to achieve the picture-perfect celebration of all that matters most to them.
Of course it is the birthday of Jesus and it is a time when we want to celebrate – in meaningful ways – our lives and all who are most dear to us, which come to us as a Gift.
Because we live in a broken world, this holiday celebration is broken also. For many it is a time of not only efforts to find joy but feelings of deep depression.
When I went to bed last night (December 25, as written into my initial draft of this piece) honestly I felt pretty depressed. It would take a lot of words to explain exactly why but there were layers of things that prompted these feelings despite having had a wonderful time with my oldest son.
It probably didn’t help that on Christmas Eve, after he and I went to a service and watched It’s a Wonderful Life together, we then picked another film I was surprised he had never seen before.
Something else came up on Netflix with Robin Williams, as we were browsing possibilities, leading me to ask him if he ever saw Dead Poet Society. That’s a fantastic film (and filmed at St. Andrew’s in Delaware, our home state) but very intense. He was interested and we agreed to watch that one.
Fifteen minutes into it, he suddenly felt too exhausted to continue and we went to bed.
So trying to watch Dead Poet Society Christmas evening (I haven’t seen it in awhile) alone was not the best choice. I did turn it off part way through, but not without reflecting on three amazing scenes which in part, prompted this writing about ordinary time.
When there are films I love, I often see something new in each watching – or focus more on some aspect, perhaps.
The three scenes that struck me before I turned it off on Christmas night I will describe and then link the videos below.
- The book ripping scene – to the student’s dismay after having them read a very mechanical introduction to the study of poetry, he then told them to rip out those pages. The students don’t know if he is serious, and when they realize he is, it is their first step of liberation and expansion of thought. Mr. Keating says something like, “We are not laying pipe, we are reading poetry.”
- The second great scene is when he whispers “Carpe Diem” to them while they stare into the school’s bookcase of long-ago students. Carpe Diem – Sieze the Day. In part that prompted my thoughts about the great value of our days and especially, the ordinary days. “Seize the day, boys, make your life extraordinary…”
- The third great scene I hadn’t fully noted previously in the same way was Mr. Keating’s extraction of poetry in real time from a hesitant student.
Yesterday was the feast of Epiphany, celebrating the arriving of the Three Wise Men to the manger. Officially, ordinary time begins the Monday after this coming Sunday.
Blessings in 2022 and, may you “seize the days” in ordinary ways!
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