ORDINARY TIME

Prayer for the Season: "In these ordinary days, extraordinary God, show us Your

kingdom coming. In dishes and diapers, in meetings and moments, until all time

becomes sacred time."

Practices for the Season: 

Weekly family altar time

Morning offering of the day

Evening examen with prophetic listening

Sacred pauses throughout day

Monthly celebration of God's faithfulness

Poetry for the Season:

Everyday Miracles (by Justin Farley)

The clamor of your wisdom claps

like a thousand hands in unison throughout the forest,

calling from every treetop,

and whispering within every breath the wind blows.

Your Spirit is found in the simplicity of a dew drop

and in the caws of a congregation of crows.

You are an invisible hand,

opening and closing doors as you see fit--

not always on my time frame,

not always giving me access to the rooms I wish,

but often I find ignorance is bliss.

For you block my most cherished paths,

knowing they only lead into an eternal abyss.

You are the wise King,

always leading, but serving simultaneously.

With each new day you birth into existence,

I am astonished at your beauty.

You're never hard to find

when my awareness is focused on you

and turned away from the desires of my mind.

Your miracles come in small packages,

constantly sent, but rarely opened.

I look for you in grandiose experiences,

but you keep gently tugging at my sleeve,

urging me to put on my leather gloves

and dig for you in the dirt of the garden.

If I'm not careful,

I can become oblivious to the everyday mystery--

the beauty of a daffodil,

the way sunlight rests upon my windowsill,

the Spirit who speaks when my mind gets still,

and the non-coincidental meetings of strangers,

sharing the exact conversations I need to hear.

Open my eyes when they are blind to your majesty,

so that I may witness your glory

in every root, rock, river, and ravine.

May I read the love letters you've written

upon every stump I pass in the forest,

every deer that crosses my path,

and every squirrel that leaps from limb to limb.

May I marvel at your everyday miracles

and find your fingerprints

upon every piece of evidence

in this case called life.