There are days when almost nothing happens.
You get up. You make coffee. You discover that someone has returned the milk to the refrigerator with approximately one tablespoon left in the carton, presumably because throwing it away would have required a level of moral courage unavailable at that hour.
You answer a few emails.
You look for your glasses while wearing them.
You put something somewhere safe and immediately create a mystery that may not be solved until Lent.
You make supper. You wash the dishes. You turn off the lights.
And another day has passed.
No angels appeared.
No seas parted.
No voice thundered from heaven.
Not even a respectable burning bush.
Just Tuesday.
We tend not to think of days like these as particularly significant. They are the spaces between the important things.
Birthdays are important.
Weddings are important.
Christmas is important.
Easter is important.
The first day of a new job is important. The day the doctor gives you the news is important. The day the child is born, the day someone dies, the day we move house, the day we retire—these are the days we remember.
But most of life does not happen on those days.
Most of life happens on Tuesdays.
The Long Green Season
I have always loved the Church’s calendar partly because it refuses to pretend that every day must be spectacular.
We have our great festivals, certainly.
Christmas arrives with angels and shepherds.
Epiphany brings wise travellers and a star.
Holy Week carries us through the deepest mysteries of suffering, death, and resurrection.
Pentecost comes with wind and fire.
And then there is Ordinary Time.
Green.
Week after week after week of green.
At this point in the year, even the liturgical calendar seems to have settled down.
Thanksgiving has passed. All Saints has not yet arrived. Advent remains somewhere over the horizon.
We are simply here.
Ordinary Time.
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