Extraordinarily Ordinary (Lisa)

The two most extraordinary, wrapped in awe, mysterious things we humans ever contemplate is our beginning and ending and yet both are such ordinary events. It doesn’t just happen to a select few. It happens to us all. It’s ordinary.

We can think that of ourselves too, that our troubles, lives, our persons are extraordinary. Maybe we think we won’t matter if we are just ordinary.

For me, coming from a very large family, I felt the need to stand out in some way, be noticed, be loved, be extraordinary but I’m not. I’m just ordinary and God’s just fine with that. I sometimes need to remind myself of this and reflect back on a moment in my childhood that so perfectly reflected His love of just ordinary me.

Somewhere inside of a1972 school year...

Feeling the middle school itch to find myself and express it OUT LOUD... my efforts were somewhat strained by the wearing of Catholic school uniforms but by the 6th or 7th grade I finally got my bold on. Finding a grey area in the dress code and weighing all of probably 65 lbs., I arrived at school wearing high-top construction boots on spindly legs. I even acquired the nickname Toothpick in a Bucket to go along with the name Pickles, for bringing frozen pickle juice to drink for lunch but I digress...

I recall being invited by a parent to a board meeting in the middle of the day. Mrs. D knocked on the classroom door and spoke with the teacher. My name was called and being the optimist, I bounded up to the front of the room looking for something good to happen. I trustingly offered my hand to a tall Mrs. D who walked me and my frumpy old sweater that smelled like dad and my clunky construction boots to the principal’s office. I thought it was an honor of some sort! Maybe they liked my creative spirit! Entering the room with a proud open smile I looked across the table of official looking people – probably PTA members and my principal. Needless to say, I didn’t get an award. I was sad and mortified, as Mrs D, to whom I had just given all my trust and hope, started pointing at this and that on my person and barking out that the school needed to DO SOMETHING or the whole Catholic world was going to fall apart.

It was a difficult moment to go through. I was brave but went home crying later that day. This event drew my mom, who never rocked boats to call the school and complain because she was so angry! She scooped me up in her arms and loved me so well. She noticed not my extraordinary shoes or sweater, she noticed only little ordinary but important ME, a middle schooler, a trying ME, the little ME who needed to feel unique and special. I felt loved, really, really loved in that moment.

I was proud of my mom and I was proud of creative me. I regained my pride and kept wearing those boots and at 62, I still have them. At the end of that year, I had all my classmates sign them. I was loved and noticed and stood out to those who loved me just and to my God who had always loved me.

There is nothing wrong with trying to be extraordinary. It is after all, a way of expressing the light that lives inside of us all. I may be an ordinary person but in the sight of Love, in the sight of God, who exists in all love, in the sight of all that, I am beyond extraordinary and so are you. This is after all, the extraordinarily ordinary nature of life, as a child of God. Are we blessed or what?