The church is entering a time of the Christian Year called Ordinary time. We tend to think of Ordinary things as plain, simple and maybe even boring. But often times our meaning and purpose is found not in the extravagant and spectacular, but the ordinary things of life and faith. This time is designated as Ordinary in part because there are no major Holy days or feast days to celebrate–no Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter of Pentecost. We have completed the cycle and now, in this Ordinary time, we take a moment to pause and to rest in the Word and life of Christ. This summer we are adding a simple time of Scripture reading/hearing, prayer and Communion on Sunday mornings at 8:30 a.m. Take 30 or so minutes of your time to come and rest in Christ’s presence during this ordinary, simple time.

The following a poem from Marie Howe’s book The Kingdom of Ordinary Time

The Star Market

The people Jesus loved were shopping The Star Market yesterday.

An old lead-colored man standing next to me at the checkout

breathed so heavily I had to step back a few steps.

Even after his bags were packed he still stood, breathing hard and

hacking into his hand. The feeble, the lame, I could hardly look at them:

shuffling through the aisles, they smelled of decay, as if The Star Market

had declared a day off for the able-bodied, and I had wandered in

with the rest of them: sour milk, bad meat:

looking for cereal and spring water.

Jesus must have been a saint, I said to myself, looking for my lost car

in the parking lot later, stumbling among the people who would have

been lowered into rooms by ropes, who would have crept

out of caves or crawled from the corners of public baths on their hands

and knees begging for mercy.

If I touch only the hem of his garment, one woman thought, I will be healed.

Could I bear the look on his face when he wheels around?