Philosophical Ponderings: The Mundane
Everyday life is pretty dull. At least for me, maybe you too. I get up, go to class, go to work, fit homework in there somewhere, and if I'm lucky some time with friends; always dreaming of something more exciting, adventurous, more meaningful. More days of my life are shaded with grey than colored with vibrant reds, oranges, purples, blues, greens, and yellows (yes, I wanted to list them all off). But are they really?
You can define mundane as dull but you can also contrast it with the heavenly, spiritual; therefore, it's of this earth. (At least that's what google tells me.)
A professor here at school said something along the lines of learning to see God and know Him more by the cracks of the sidewalk, the street, etc. I thought, "What the heck is that supposed to mean?" I hope to spend the rest of my life discovering it! For now, I think he was challenging us to see God in the everyday occurrences.
(Don't worry I'll connect all these later, at least I have intentions of doing so, if I don't, make your own connections)
Here's the thing, it's great to have a vision, a deep desire in your heart, a dream. It's easy to see vibrancy, excitement, and God in these things (and often, if not always, they are from Him). It is a taste of heaven, the extraordinary, and the wonderful and who doesn't want to live in that every single day?!
Have you heard of Enoch. Yeah, pretty much all it says about him is that He walked with God. Walked. Really? That's all. Have you considered how boring that sounds? Elijah's calling fire down from heaven, Moses is parting seas, Peter's walking on water, and what's Enoch doing? He's just normal walking. So what's it about that that makes him listed as our "great hero's of faith"?
I don't talk too much about the year I spent at home when my time in Chicago was split into two halves. There's a few reasons for it but one of them is because...the walking is HARD! When everyday is a repeat of the day before, when there is no vision, no strong desire for any one thing in particular, when you have to take only one day at a time and even then sometimes only one hour at a time that's when placing just one foot in front of the other is exhausting and tiring. It's tiring to see any glimpse of the heavenly. It's exhausting to see God in well, anything at all. It feels like the colors have been removed from your sight and all you see now is dull grey.
So when all you can see is grey and all you can do is take one step forward towards the ordinary how do you retrain your senses and mind to LIVE FULLY in that? Perhaps that's when you learn to see God in the crack of the sidewalk. Perhaps that's when you realize grey has many shades. Perhaps that's when God asks you if He is still worth simply walking with, just that one step. Perhaps the mundane is what gives the depth and dimension to life, to the vision.
Learn to see God in the mundane. Learn to see Him in the dull. Learn how the earthly reflects the spiritual. Retrain the senses and walk one step at a time.
May the exotic life we crave be colored with the ordinary people and the ordinary places!
(This was also inspired by Oswald Chamber's My Utmost for His Highest March 6th selection.)
You can define mundane as dull but you can also contrast it with the heavenly, spiritual; therefore, it's of this earth. (At least that's what google tells me.)
A professor here at school said something along the lines of learning to see God and know Him more by the cracks of the sidewalk, the street, etc. I thought, "What the heck is that supposed to mean?" I hope to spend the rest of my life discovering it! For now, I think he was challenging us to see God in the everyday occurrences.
(Don't worry I'll connect all these later, at least I have intentions of doing so, if I don't, make your own connections)
Here's the thing, it's great to have a vision, a deep desire in your heart, a dream. It's easy to see vibrancy, excitement, and God in these things (and often, if not always, they are from Him). It is a taste of heaven, the extraordinary, and the wonderful and who doesn't want to live in that every single day?!
Have you heard of Enoch. Yeah, pretty much all it says about him is that He walked with God. Walked. Really? That's all. Have you considered how boring that sounds? Elijah's calling fire down from heaven, Moses is parting seas, Peter's walking on water, and what's Enoch doing? He's just normal walking. So what's it about that that makes him listed as our "great hero's of faith"?
I don't talk too much about the year I spent at home when my time in Chicago was split into two halves. There's a few reasons for it but one of them is because...the walking is HARD! When everyday is a repeat of the day before, when there is no vision, no strong desire for any one thing in particular, when you have to take only one day at a time and even then sometimes only one hour at a time that's when placing just one foot in front of the other is exhausting and tiring. It's tiring to see any glimpse of the heavenly. It's exhausting to see God in well, anything at all. It feels like the colors have been removed from your sight and all you see now is dull grey.
So when all you can see is grey and all you can do is take one step forward towards the ordinary how do you retrain your senses and mind to LIVE FULLY in that? Perhaps that's when you learn to see God in the crack of the sidewalk. Perhaps that's when you realize grey has many shades. Perhaps that's when God asks you if He is still worth simply walking with, just that one step. Perhaps the mundane is what gives the depth and dimension to life, to the vision.
May the exotic life we crave be colored with the ordinary people and the ordinary places!
(This was also inspired by Oswald Chamber's My Utmost for His Highest March 6th selection.)
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