275/365 Ordinary Time is Waning

I have something planned every weekend from here until mid-December (and those will fill up, I know). When I focused long enough to rattle it off to a neighbor today, I got this doomed feeling. Ordinary time is slipping away from me.

In the atrium, we call it "Growing Season", and it is. It's the time to grow in God's word and love, but also in the rest of our lives, all our mundane tasks and gardens and houses and families. This is the time for vacations when you reconnect with your kids, and the time to finally get cucumbers to grow in your garden. We spend our summers lazing about, but really we don't. We work at being and becoming the people we are. Early fall greets us with harvest and back to school, back to encouraging routines and new beginnings. It's a beautiful time of year.

And before I know it, it will be gone. So far gone. The little green plants on either side of the ambo will be gone and an Advent wreath will hang in the back, at the entrance to church. It'll be cold and negotiating last minute present wrapping with school and church and family obligations and traditions. Traditions. I think that's why I like the easy breath of Ordinary Time: there aren't so many traditions. Just good Gospel stories and a plain church and no big worries. Sure, some local traditions, but there's room to move around in Ordinary Time.

Until now.