Finding Meaning in the Ordinary

When you've sat through a few decades of sermons, it's easy to tune them out, to be sitting in the sanctuary and have your mind elsewhere. I've been lucky that I've had pastors who are excellent preachers, who brought the word of God with power and in interesting ways.

Today was no exception. Pastor Mark Snodgrass began by discussing what it meant to be ordinary. He gave the results of his Googling his own name, and displaying pictures of other people named Mark Snodgrass. One man was residing in a facility of the California Dept. of Corrections. [An aside: I've done the same thing and found a David A. Todd incarcerated in Pennsylvania] Then he told a number of ordinary things about his life.

Then, based on Colossians 3, he showed us how to find glory in the ordinary things we do every day. He even did it with some unintended humor. One of his illustrations was about a job he had in college, being monitor of the computer lab. He said he really had only three duties: help people log on, help people heck their e-mail, and keep the printer stocked with paper. He made the point of how ordinary this was. But twice, when he meant to say paper in the printer, he said, "printer in the paper." The congregation snickered, though I don't think he understood we weren't laughing at his illustration but at his misspeaking.

So this week I will be looking for meaning and glory in the ordinary. As I look ahead to the workweek, it looks pretty ordinary to me. No special meetings. No travel. Be in the office and manage the company's training. I have a few special items to handle, but not just a few, and they shouldn't be time consuming.

In my writing, I hope to be publishing a short story, "Whiskey, Zebra, Tango", this week. At some point publishing will become ordinary, but not yet. But I don't anticipate doing a lot of writing on new works; well, maybe on a couple of articles. But overall you could say this will be an ordinary week for writing as well.

So, I hope next Sunday to come back and report on whether there was meaning and glory in the ordinary. I think there will be.