The Ordinary Sacred

She opened the door partway and rather reluctantly said, “Yes?”  I leaned in so to see her face and introduced myself as the new minister at her church.  The door swung open as wide as the smile across her face as she warmly welcomed me.

Curling was on the TV as we each took our seats on her comfy couch and she muted the sound while saying, “I was hoping to meet you!”  I looked around her cozy room and admired the pictures on the wall and the bright sunshine that was pouring in the windows.

“I haven’t been here long”, she explained, “but I have been enjoying it.” (she had recently moved into this retirement home)

We continued to visit for the next 15 minutes; she told me bits and pieces of her life and shared fond memories of her beloved church.  Before leaving we prayed together and I gave her a card which had my phone number and email address written upon it and we discussed when we would meet again.

That meeting will have to wait.

Exactly a week later I sat with her family as we planned her funeral; each reeling at the suddenness of her death.

That ordinary visit was actually a sacred encounter.

How often do we go through the routine of our days not realizing how each moment is a sacred gift that once passed it cannot be regained?

I vow that through this Lenten Season I will deliberately savor each moment.  I will be pausing to be mindful of the gift of even the most mundane routines as laundry, making supper or shoveling snow, looking for the sacred in each task.

And you know what?  It has already paid off!  Today as I drove down the same street I have driven down a thousand times in the past 30 years I looked up just in time to see two swans in full flight.  Have you ever seen two swans in full flight? With their long elegant necks stretched out and their angel wings riding the breeze, they look otherworldly and sacred indeed!

May your Lenten journey be jam-packed with the ordinary turned sacred and may it amaze you.

Blessings,

Rev. Heather McCarrel