Being Ordinary

I would like to propose the concept of ordinariness as the avenue to happiness, and I think Pope Francis would, too.

Ordinary life entails feeling happy and excited at some times and sad and frustrated at others. It means kicking a soccer ball, or gliding down a slide, or acting in a play. It means dancing around the room when no one else is watching (which is simultaneously a relief and also everyone else’s loss). It means biting into and savoring a crispy apple or a juicy burger or a soft piece of vanilla cake. Being ordinary means noticing the breeze as the trees start to look like fall, and taking great joy in holding someone’s hand, and belly-laughing so hard it hurts. Being ordinary is being grateful. And prayerful. And real.

Being ordinary is the simple act of wonder at being alive.

In Pope Francis’ homily at the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia on Sunday, he spoke about “little gestures” that we learn in the home. These are “quiet things done by mothers and grandmothers, by fathers and grandfathers, by children. They are little signs of tenderness, affection and compassion.” Examples of these little gestures include “the warm supper we look forward to at night, the early lunch awaiting someone who gets up early to go to work…a blessing before we go to bed, or a hug after we return from a hard day’s work.”

Little gestures are, basically, ordinary things.

He practices what he preaches. Pope Francis kissing and blessing a baby in Philadelphia.
Photo from cdn.newsday.com

Faith shows us that happiness and holiness, Pope Francis says, are “always tied to little gestures,” like Jesus’ example in Sunday’s Gospel: “Whoever gives you a cup of water in my name will not go unrewarded” (cf. Mk 9:41).

“Love is shown by little things, by attention to small daily signs which make us feel at home. Faith grows when it is lived and shaped by love,” encouraged Pope Francis. Having a spirit of hospitality is an ordinary thing, and it is a simple thing. We are called to welcome others as their ordinary selves. As the selves we are created to be, we are tasked with welcoming the selves of others.

So, when we dare to be daughters and sons and sisters and brothers and mothers and fathers and grandmothers and grandfathers and classmates and friends and neighbors who love through gifting little gestures and through, in turn, experiencing joy in little gestures, we live and shape love in community. And happiness is always caught up in this dance between faith and love. So happiness always accompanies the ordinary life, when we live it in love.

In this way, in “tak[ing] part in the feast of the Gospel,” the good Word of love, as Pope Francis urges us to do, the ordinary life takes on the properties of the extraordinary. And the extraordinary can be mediated through something as ordinary as giving someone else a cup of cold water.