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Inhabiting the Ordinary · Infinitely Precious

• 0:00
  Intro: Welcome to the Infinitely Precious podcast produced by Infinitely Precious LLC. Your host is James Henry. Remember, you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are.
• 0:12
  James: Hello, beloved. It's me, James. It's good to be with you for another episode of the Infinitely Precious podcast. We've been practicing inhabiting things recently. And we began with inhabiting what it means to be infinitely precious and have worked our way forward till the last week we talked about inhabiting wonder.
• 0:34
  Well, I'm gonna take a step in a slightly different direction, it feels like to me, in the Inhabiting series to talk about what it means to inhabit the ordinary. We so easily get caught up when we get to that level of wonder, that sunset, that amazing beauty of the way that the rain catches the sunlight into a rainbow or perhaps a sunrise. Perhaps you get caught up in the morning as I did the other day just looking out my window and seeing the twilight between night and morning as there just was beginning to be a differentiation between the darkness of the horizon and what was on the horizon, in this case, trees and houses, and then a sky that was just beginning to light up a little bit. Those can become extraordinary moments. But what about the ordinary moments?
• 1:42
  I just got back from vacation. In fact, I talked a little bit about my anticipated vacation on the last two podcasts. So I thought I might reflect on some of what was quite ordinary. And in that way, extraordinary in our vacation. How to inhabit the ordinary.
• 2:08
  Now, took a couple of days for us to acclimate. You know, when you're in another country, there's another language, there's different food, different customs, it's a different city, you're not in your own home. There are a lot of out of the ordinary things. But by about the third or fourth day on our trip to Portugal, we would sit in cafes, which I guess is a fairly European thing to do in an ordinary way and order a cappuccino or a latte and sit quietly and just watch people go by. Maybe talk about what was going on, but just be a part of the flow of life, the everyday kind of flow of life that was going around.
• 3:07
  And yes, it was vacation and yes, it was into a new and wonder filled place. And yet at the same time, there was a certain pattern that began to develop. In one of the cities we ultimately stayed in for four days, Queenborough, we found a gluten free cafe very near to us. And that meant that when we went to that cafe, we could go twice a day because for breakfast we would go and we could get appropriate pastries that both the gluten free members of our households, my wife and I could eat and choose to be together, drink our coffee and simply enjoy the beginning of the day. Nothing particularly extraordinary about it.
• 4:00
  The flavors, I could certainly wax poetic about any of those things and make it into about the wonder of every bite. But in so many ways, it was just ordinary. We met real live people. We walked from our room down the hill and back up a hill a bit to get to the cafe. We walked where we went and we sort of attempted to blend into the daily rhythms of the space in which we found ourselves in the three different cities where we stayed.
• 4:43
  We became a part of it and there's something wonderful about learning to inhabit ordinary sips of your morning latte or coffee or tea or whatever it is you may drink. There's something about just watching life and participating in it by watching it. Simply being there. Truly being there. We are in a world that seems to beckon to us to look for the extraordinary moments, that one amazing sky, that one amazing encounter.
• 5:23
  If you're a preacher like me, that one amazing sermon that we preached. And you know, it's nice to have the extraordinary mountaintop experiences. We talked about it with wonder. The attempt to hold on to things sometimes. But what about the ordinary everyday lives we live?
• 5:44
  Me just sitting in this chair and talking to you about what is ordinary. Because as we begin to inhabit the ordinary spaces of our lives, we're really living in the space where we are. Because there are lots of different spaces, the moments of wonder, the moments of awe, the moments of work. But what about just the sit in on the couch at the end of the day. Nothing particular is happening.
• 6:22
  Nothing out of the ordinary. It simply is the space we inhabit. And those ordinary movements, those ordinary spaces being part of life is in itself, here we go, extraordinary. Most of our lives sometimes feel ordinary and we think that's a bad word but we get to be a part of it. We are in it.
• 6:58
  And I guess if I were thinking about it as wonderful as it was to make this trip, it was one of the most restful vacations I've had because we didn't overplan it. We knew where we were going and where we were staying. And we knew about vaguely the train schedule to get from town to town in Portugal, learn some important things while we were doing it. We could talk about inhabiting learning, but we are not today. But those rides on the train were pretty ordinary.
• 7:34
  Those disembarking at our destinations were pretty ordinary. The walking down the street to get where we were going was pretty ordinary. And it was in being in those ordinary moments that I got to experience life as it came to me in Portugal. And in so many ways, that life made me appreciate the ordinary nature of the life I live here. It's unique.
• 8:10
  I'm precious. I get all those things because they're a part of all of this. And that's why I talk about them here in the Infinitely podcast. The ordinary doesn't mean dull. It doesn't mean empty.
• 8:29
  It doesn't mean pointless. It means that a lot of our life is simply showing up in the moment we find ourselves. The ordinary moments. Before I came to record this podcast, I was sitting down to have some lunch. I had some broccoli.
• 8:56
  And it was broccoli. And I sat and I enjoyed each of the bites that went with that. I drank some water and I was in the moment of simply being present, the ordinary moment. Then I came back here and one of the ordinary things that has to happen in order to do the podcast on a regular basis, I do it on a computer that is driven by Linux is one of the first things I do when I sit down and fire up the computer is to update it. Bring it up to date security wise and update wise.
• 9:34
  Very ordinary thing to do. Just part of a pattern that I but it matters that I do it. It matters that I do it. And those little moments, those little ordinary moments are part of being in this one big beautiful universe. You know, not every moment is filled with wonder or the extraordinary.
• 10:07
  Oftentimes those moments are ordinary, real, and we get to be in them. So I appreciated the Ordinary way we sat in a cafe or in a restaurant and got to be a part of life in a whole another place. And it made me appreciate the ordinary ways I engage life here. Taking a walk around the block, walking down to the office, having a conversation with one small child who happens to be on the playground in the back of the church on my way in, on my way back home from the preschool, all of those things. It's the beauty of being alive We get to be in it.
• 11:01
  We don't have to rush through the ordinary to get to the next extraordinary, wonder filled moment. Every moment, every ordinary moment is worth inhabiting because we're catching our breath, we're alive in it. So I hope for you that you're finding that aliveness. I hope that you are finding that in the ordinary moments of your life, there's a real gift in that ordinary moment. Remember always even in the ordinary moments, maybe especially in the ordinary moments, you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are.
• 11:45
  Just showing up in your life in those ordinary moments, what a precious gift to you and to the rest of us. Thanks for being you and thanks for joining us today. I look forward to being with you the next time. Until then, all the best to you.