Eric’s Sunday Sermon; How to Live in The Ordinary and the Extraordinary

Those are just fantastic words. It appears that they would be polar opposites. And perhaps they are but they are both within us. In studies we would find that these are actually theological terms when they are referenced together. For sure though the finest of the fine are extraordinary. And most blades of grass are “just” ordinary.

Growing up an ordinary grade on a test was basically frowned upon. If you were not on “Honor Roll” life around mom got a little dicey. My first wife was a teacher. So ordinary for our three children was basically a grounding of some sort until extra work was done so as not to be ordinary. My current bride of over 15 years now is your perfect cliché Asian parent. It really is like engrained. If her little boy is not in the top five of his class there is wrath. Just last week I had to take her gently aside and explain that we do not say “YOU are lazy” we say “that is lazy”. The distinction is not subtle but critical. We hate the action but never the person – our God of Love forbids it.

My boy just got up. And of course that means about 5 minutes of hugging in my big old recliner in my office. A simple prayer. “Thank you Lord Jesus, Lord of love.” And then chit chat about the great things we get to do today. And today the boy let loose a big old Gastronomical Extravaganza. You don’t hate the boy but you hate the stink from his, what lay people call a fart. Gases build up and it is healthy to release them. In our home we run away but giggle. For us that is ordinary. For most probably down right crude and less that ordinary. Funny that term.

Think of a prisoner of war. Perhaps beatings and being locked in a cage are ordinary. For my boy and I, making everything fun including chores and study, and being grateful we can do them is ordinary. Now you have to admit those are strange and not ordinary thoughts on ordinary.

They label people. If I do plumbing it is extraordinary if my buddy Tran comes by as a plumber it is ordinary. One time I got labeled. They sent me to this weird, not ordinary group of folks. Maybe the place was right for me but I got the hell out of there. There were like MIT grads there that could do things like multiply three separate 5 digit numbers in their heads. They wore wrinkled shirts and strange hair and smelled like they had not bathed in two weeks. I think to them it was ordinary.

I don’t do much scripture labeling and quoting. To my writing that is quite ordinary. But go read some pieces my Miss Dora and she does it extraordinary. If you read my work I use scripture but ordinarily only through conception reference. To me that is ordinary.

My wife and son will attend their church on this wonderful Sunnyday. (oops, no matter the weather I general refer to Sunday as Sunnyday. That may be strange but ordinary for me and their attendance is ordinary for them.)

And this beat of the ordinary goes on. If we follow laws we are ordinary. Most people do not violate currently normal laws. Although I think here in California it is still illegal to spit on a sidewalk instead of the dirt road. Lincoln said to the effect that following the law is the greatest freedom.

And so you get into theology and love. I always stand in awe of good people citing the bible about things like what do you have to do to get into heaven. And off they go quoting the bible about the laws. You must be ordinary to get into heaven. I use “ordinary” here because most people don’t sin in a major way. The acceptance of Jesus is quite important but if you have never been introduced to him there is an exception by law. And that is all good in the ordinary.

I have never met a “Bible Thumper” that rose above ordinary. Following a “group think” is ordinary. People get all wigged out about politics. I wonder if they know that that is quite ordinary. “I have no time to….” Is very ordinary. Check that out I used the term “very” ordinary. That would be wrong as very means more than ordinary.

Man am I tired about talking about ordinary. It is so ordinary and I don’t do ordinary. It seems it would be a good idea here to take a break and come back to speak of extraordinary.

Catholic vs. catholic

Why would anyone know or care about the capital “C” and the lower case “c”. I am in my fifth year of studying the Catholic catechism on line. It is produced by a Bishops group for North America. I am not Catholic in the sense of tradition. I am catholic. I believe in the extraordinary. It is how I run my life. We do not do ordinary here. We do extraordinary here. So let us look at the difference between extraordinary and ordinary and Catholic and catholic.

Catholic basically is a church/religion structure. The term catholic is a worldwide faith or man. Ordinary is man’s law. Extraordinary is the God of Love’s actions.

So you want to go to heaven via ordinary, accept Jesus in your life and avoid sin and repent if you do. If you want to go to heaven via the extraordinary just ask your God. The very definitions or love and God are basically that there are no rules, no boundaries and an omnipresence of love. Our love can conquer anything and our God can conquer anything.

So if you are like me, a general screw up in the ordinary, have faith in love of the extraordinary.

Just think of love. It is omnipresent, omnipotent, and alpha and omega. Yet it is palpable in the extraordinary. Around in this publication site we often pray for each other or just send the love to someone 4 thousand miles away and that love gets there immediately. No that is what I am talking about extraordinary. As I cogitate on this I realize I have never met up with or seen ordinary love. I don’t think I even know what that means. In our hand holding prayer circle last night the gratitude was easy enough to make us cry expressing our thanks for the bounty we have. (Ok, we do a fact check and ours is just a prayer triangle as there are only three of us in the ordinary. But we count love and Jesus as members so it is a circle as the extraordinary.)

In my youth preaching time a young man who just got a full ride scholarship to Berkeley was going all atheist. The scholarship was in something like physics. Not ordinarily smart but extraordinary smart. The preacher reaction was plain and simple in the extraordinary. Shut up Eric and give him a hug. He went like “whoa, wow!” and said he had not had a hug in years.

Shut up Eric and hug. Shut up Eric and Love. Shut up Eric and feel. Stop Eric with the thinking and start with the actions of love. This will bring extraordinary ordinary results for others, your brain will not.

Walk in the beauty of the extraordinary my loved ones.