There is a peculiar feature of modern life that deserves considerably more theological attention than it receives: we are nearly always on our way to something else.
We walk through Monday thinking about Tuesday. We sit through October wondering how soon Christmas will arrive. We drink our morning coffee while planning lunch, eat lunch while worrying about supper, and spend supper discussing what must be accomplished tomorrow.
It is entirely possible to travel through an entire day without actually arriving in it.
This may explain why God sometimes has such difficulty getting our attention.
Not, I hasten to add, because God is particularly subtle. God has been known to employ burning bushes, pillars of fire, angelic choirs, parted seas, and prophets who seem constitutionally incapable of speaking quietly.
The difficulty may simply be that we are busy.
Moses notices the burning bush because he turns aside to look.
Samuel eventually hears the voice calling his name because Eli tells him to stop running back and forth and listen.
The disciples recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread because, for one blessed moment, they are sitting at a table rather than rushing toward the next appointment.
Again and again, Scripture suggests that revelation requires something remarkably unfashionable:
attention.
The Holiness of Paying Attention
These days between Thanksgiving and All Saints are wonderfully ordinary.
The great turkey has been reduced to sandwiches.
The leaves are becoming less picturesque and more something that must be raked.
The garden has largely surrendered.
The furnace has begun making noises that cause homeowners to stare thoughtfully at the ceiling.
And somewhere in a shopping centre, Christmas decorations have probably appeared with the quiet theological confidence that Advent is merely an administrative inconvenience.
The Church, however, gives us these ordinary days.
No great festival demands our attention just yet.
We are simply here.
And perhaps that is precisely the gift.
Because Christianity is not chiefly about escaping ordinary life. It is about discovering that God has entered it.
“The Word became flesh and lived among us.”
That may be one of the most astonishing sentences ever written.
God did not merely send instructions.
God moved into the neighbourhood.
Jesus walked dusty roads. He ate meals. He attended weddings. He visited friends. He became tired. He noticed children. He watched farmers sow seed and women knead bread. He paid attention to birds, flowers, coins, fishing nets, vineyards, weather, neighbours, strangers, and people everybody else had somehow managed not to see.
Jesus seems to have possessed the remarkable ability to be where he was.
We might call that holiness.
Hurry Has a Theology Too
Hurry quietly teaches us something.
It tells us that the present moment is insufficient.
Something more important is coming.
Somewhere else matters more.
Someone else deserves our attention.
Once we finish this task, solve this problem, answer this email, survive this week, complete this project, get through this season—then we will begin living properly.
The trouble is that “then” has an extraordinary habit of moving.
I have personally observed that tomorrow remains stubbornly one day away regardless of how enthusiastically one pursues it.
Jesus offers another way.
“Do not worry about tomorrow,” he says.
This is not irresponsibility. Jesus is not recommending that we throw away calendars, abandon retirement planning, or inform Revenue Canada that Matthew 6 has rendered income tax spiritually unnecessary.
He is reminding us that grace is given in the present tense.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Not next Thursday’s bread.
Not the bread required for the entire fiscal year.
This day.
Perhaps God Is Already Here
One of the great temptations of the spiritual life is to imagine that God will become more available once circumstances improve.
When life settles down.
When grief becomes lighter.
When work becomes manageable.
When the children are older.
When retirement arrives.
When the parish budget balances.
When the house is finally organized.
I have seen enough basements to suspect that the Kingdom of God may arrive before the average Canadian household is completely organized.
Grace does not wait.
God keeps appearing in the life we actually have.
Not the life we meant to have.
Not the life we will someday have.
This one.
That means the ordinary moment deserves our attention.
The conversation at the grocery store.
The neighbour waving from across the street.
The cup of tea after a difficult afternoon.
The October sunlight falling across the kitchen floor.
The friend whose name suddenly comes to mind.
The person sitting quietly at the edge of the room whom everyone else has overlooked.
The unexpected laughter.
The silence after prayer.
The person who needs five minutes of our time when we had carefully allocated four.
We may call these interruptions.
God has occasionally been known to call them appointments.
All Saints Is Coming
Soon the Church will arrive at All Saints.
We will remember those whose lives have become signs of Christ’s presence among us.
But I suspect very few saints woke each morning thinking, “Today I shall become historically significant.”
Most simply tried to be faithful where they were.
They prayed.
They noticed.
They served.
They forgave.
They cooked meals.
They visited the lonely.
They challenged injustice.
They cared for the sick.
They welcomed strangers.
They kept showing up.
Holiness accumulated quietly.
Perhaps sainthood is less about accomplishing spectacular things than becoming increasingly available to God in ordinary ones.
That possibility should both encourage and alarm us.
Encourage us because holiness may be nearer than we imagined.
Alarm us because we have just lost our best excuse.
Stay Here for a Moment
So perhaps the invitation for today is wonderfully small.
Do not hurry past your own life.
Stay here.
Notice something.
Listen to someone.
Taste your coffee before it becomes cold.
Look at the trees before November removes the evidence.
Say the prayer you keep meaning to say.
Telephone the person whose name keeps wandering through your thoughts.
Sit quietly for sixty seconds without attempting to improve yourself.
And before rushing toward whatever comes next, ask:
Where is God in this moment?
You may not receive thunder.
There may be no angel.
The bush may remain entirely unburned.
But you may discover something quieter and perhaps more important.
God was already here.
And perhaps the spiritual life begins when we finally arrive too.
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Companion Prayer
God of this moment,
slow our hurried hearts.
When we are already thinking about tomorrow,
teach us to receive today.
When we rush past people, beauty, silence, and grace,
give us eyes to notice.
Remind us that you are not waiting somewhere ahead of us.
You are here—
in ordinary conversations,
unexpected interruptions,
quiet acts of kindness,
October sunlight,
and daily bread.
Give us the grace to be fully present
to you,
to one another,
and to the life you have placed before us.
And when we are tempted to hurry toward something more important,
help us remember that love is usually found
right where we are.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.