Seek the Sacred Amidst the Ordinary

It’s turned cold again this morning, reminding us winter is far from over. No one seems sure how to dress for this weather, winter in the morning, perhaps like spring by the afternoon. So I was drawn to this photo of our back yard, taken by my husband Mark. Fog obscures the background, drawing your eyes to what my daughter calls the secret garden. In spring and summer, the overgrown shrubbery completely obscures the view. As a small child, she loved playing there, creating fanciful stories and imaginary worlds. My father brought us the bench from the Columbus Sale in New Jersey, almost twenty years ago. Yet what seems like a lovely place to sit is not now what it appears. The bench is broken, beyond repair. We struggle to keep poison ivy from crowding out the bulbs and other plantings. And my daughter is now a junior in high school, driving from here to there, rather than playing in our back garden. Life is far from certain, and often far from what it appears to be. I don’t know about you, but I struggle with uncertainty. In engineering school, I studied ways to model the world around us, to mathematically reduce the chaos into some semblance of certainty. Yet what really matters, the reasons we get out of bed each morning, the people and places we love most, defy all reason and calculations. To truly love one another we must accept uncertainty, throwing caution to the wind, opening our hearts to both the joy and the pain. Take time today to be truly present to those you love, accepting whatever life brings. Let go of your expectations and desire for control, let go of yesterday and tomorrow and cling to today. Empty yourself to make room for the Alpha and the Omega, the God of steadfast love that was, and is and always will be. And remember, ubi caritas et amor, where love and caring are, there is God. Photo by Mark Lindsey