We are invited into the sacred ordinary. This Ignatian idea that God is in all things. Every moment pregnant with the grace of God. God has moved into the neighborhood [John 1], the presence of Christ fills the whole earth, and the Spirit of God lives within. Love. Light. Life. This is God revealed to us and to all of Creation groaning for redemption.

We are often drawn to the extra-ordinary and to the spectacular — but most of our lived experience consists of the very mundane, everyday realities. So how do we receive this Love, Light and Life in our own lives in a way that heals us and liberates us? How do we participate in this Love, Light and Life here on the ground? Here in our schools, workplaces and neighborhoods?

The temptation is to think we must do more or be more. We are waiting for the stars to align until we can be who we are meant to be and can participate in God's work of renewal. We are waiting for that elusive moment when we will have time.

What if we realized that Christ was already here -- in every moment, just waiting to be invited into our everyday?

This is the wisdom of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, among so many others, who said:

“It takes three things 
to attain a sense of significant being: 
God, 
A Soul, 
and a Moment.
And the three 
are always here.”

God. Soul. A Moment. God is always here. God's love is near. Present to us. Beckoning us from the busy. Inviting us from the many demands of life to experience the depths of God's presence.

So let us love the ordinary. Let us love the closeness of God and the sacred, here and now. Let us cherish the everyday, the every breath, the place where we are. For surely Christ is in all of it.

Christ be beside me, 
Christ be before me, 
Christ be behind me, 
King of my heart.
Christ be within me, 
Christ be below me, 
Christ be above me, 
never to part.
Christ on my right hand, 
Christ on my left hand, 
Christ all around me, 
shield in the strife.
Christ in my sleeping, 
Christ in my sitting, 
Christ in my rising, 
light of my life.
Christ be in all hearts thinking about me; 
Christ be on all tongues telling of me; 
Christ be the vision in eyes that see me; 
in ears that hear me, Christ ever be. 
-St. Patricks's Breastplate Prayer

by Jessica Ketola
​

Last Sunday, we talked about our story as The Practicing Church to live into the extraordinary ordinary. To recognize the resurrected Jesus in the gritty mundane of our lives. To join in the work of Easter that is breaking out all around us. To practice this way of love that disrupts and reorders power structures, that is good news to the poor, and that brings freedom to those who are bowed down.

And our text from the lectionary was John 21 where the resurrected Jesus appears again to the disciples. Here we find them going back to their day jobs, many of them who were commercial fisherman. They have one of those terrible nights of frustration and futility as they fish all night without catching a thing. And then this man whom they do not recognize calls to them from the shore, telling them to throw their net on the other side. And for reasons that seem hard to understand, they do it. Even though I imagine some consternation and head-shaking over the nerve of this guy, for hadn't they already tried a hundred times? And so they cast their nets again and this time pull up a catch of fish so large they can’t even haul it in. And in that moment they recognize the Risen Lord. They recognize their friend, their rabbi, their Lord, their God in the flesh, now in a wounded and glorified body. And the story unfolds into these intimate moments where Jesus makes breakfast for them. Can you imagine? God making you breakfast?

I love this story with its rich metaphor amidst the intimacy and humility of Christ. But I am especially struck with how their encounter with the Risen Lord transforms their everyday lives. They are at work, returning to the grind of making a living wage. They are experiencing disequilibrium as they thought they lost everything when Jesus was crucified and then were utterly shocked and in disbelief when they saw him resurrected. He is appearing and disappearing, and walking through walls. And they still have no idea what this means.

But it is here in the sweat and the frustration and the bewilderment that Jesus shows up. It is here on this lake where they’ve spent so much of their life that Jesus transforms the ordinary into extraordinary. And he calls them once again, just as he did three years ago in a very similar scene, to the work of the kingdom. And of course, Jesus does it in this striking scene of incarnation -- over a meal, face to face as they share communion once more with fish and bread, tears and laughter. And he reminds them what this is all about. Love. If you love me, you will feed my sheep. You will continue what I started. You will reimagine your ordinary, everyday lives as the context for resurrection miracles.

And I can't help but think about my own neighborhood and the ordinary context of my own life and all the people and places that I love. And I can't help but feel my own disorientation and bewilderment at times about what God is up to here. For the spiritual journey is full of twists and turns, with many disappointments and deaths. But I hear the voice of Jesus calling me to cast my nets to the other side. To allow the Spirit of God to do the work when I grow tired. To turn what seems like the futility of the ordinary [lost jobs, friendships, loved ones, energy, health, hope or vision] into something extraordinary.

And I hear the invitation of Jesus to come eat the meal he has prepared for me -- feeding my soul, nourishing my body, and kindling hope once again. And then I hear his voice. If you love me, you will feed my sheep. And I am struck by this poignant image that as Jesus feeds me, he asks me to do the same, to feed others the Eucharistic meal. As we gather with our neighbors around the table and at community meals and at the Methadone clinic. We are invited to intimately and humbly serve others and to partake of this bread of life that reveals the Christ - that reveals God among us, that transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary.

​by Jessica Ketola

We as The Practicing Church want to be a transformational community. These are not light words. These are not easy words. These are words of death and resurrection. As we celebrate Eastertide, the 50 days of the Easter season, we celebrate the miracle of life, of rebirth and of resurrection. And we remember that difficulty and loss are the seedbeds for new growth and spring. Death is not the final word. Rather, it is the precursor of resurrection. Winter never lasts forever, eventually giving way to Spring. A starkly pruned stump transforms into vibrant blossoms and new growth. This is the way of death and birth and transformation.

Which is all good and fine while it remains theoretical. But when we are faced with death and loss, when we get the wind knocked out of us, when we receive the bad news, when we are sitting in what seems like insufferably long seasons of wilderness, it is hard to remember this.

It is hard to remember that this is the stuff of transformation. This is the inception of the miracle. This is the precursor to resurrection.

I love this poem, Mother Wisdom Speaks by Christine Lore Weber [included below]. For it speaks of this sacred process in which we, like Jesus, experience Easter in our wounds and thus become a part of the Spirit's work of healing in the world.

For the Spirit of Easter, the Spirit of Resurrection, the Spirit of New Creation is very much alive and present in the world. Jesus first proclaimed, “The spirit of the Lord is upon me.” The Ruach Yahweh, the breath of God, the spirit that hovered over the surface of the waters at the beginning of time, the life energy of God—this is what had seized and animated Jesus. This spirit that was to bring “good news to the poor” and “liberty to captives.” This spirit that brings God’s love to those who are marginalized by injustice, freedom to those who are imprisoned in false ways of being, and healing to those whose very self has been broken. And after Jesus experiences the Paschal Mystery of dying and rising, he breathes on his disciples as he still does today saying, "Receive the Holy Spirit."

This same Spirit of Easter that brings liberty, healing and transformation is now "upon us".

We are Easter people living in a Good Friday world. We are Easter people and hallelujah is our song. We are Easter people living in communion with the Breath of God, even in the face of suffering, death, and despair.

And so as we reflect on the places of grief, loss, hardship and longing in our own lives, let us remember that these are the deep waters in which the very breath of God is hovering over to bring forth life. And as we traverse through this world full of sorrow and suffering, let us remember that the Spirit of Easter is upon us.

by Jessica Ketola

​Mother Wisdom Speaks
by Christine Lore Weber

Some of you I will hollow out. 
I will make you a cave. 
I will carve you so deep the stars will shine in your darkness. 
You will be a bowl. 
You will be the cup in the rock collecting rain. 
I will hollow you with knives. 
I will not do this to make you clean. 
I will not do this to make you pure 
You are clean already. 
You are pure already. 
I will do this because the world needs the hollowness of you. 
I will do this for the space that you will be. 
I will do this because you must be large. 
A passage. 
People will find their way through you. 
A bowl. 
People will eat from you. 
And their hunger will not weaken them to death. 
A cup to catch the sacred rain. 
My daughter, do not cry. 
Do not be afraid. 
Nothing you need will be lost. 
I am shaping you. 
I am making you ready. 
Light will flow in your hollowing. 
You will be filled with light. 
Your bones will shine. 
The round open center of you will be radiant. 
I will call you brilliant one. 
I will call you daughter who is wide. 
I will call you transformed.