Everyday Holiness - Montana

I’ve had this thought-full quote in pocket and it seems fitting for today, both in light of current US events AND because today is Ukrainian (or Orthodox) Christmas Day. Oh, that we will walk with eyes open to see holiness and value in our everyday people and places (hmmmm... like Jesus does....).

“My mind wanders to a friend who trained monks in ritualization. “When they started Communion,” she explained, “they would pick up the chalice without giving it any thought, purely an object to be used, not treated as holy. What they needed to learn was the importance of developing a relationship with liturgical things and become involved with them. Only then would the ceremony have meaning.” 

Listening to her, I couldn't help but imagine what my world might be like if I looked at the human beings I was closest to as holy and treated them with that same sense of respect.”

-Joan Anderson, in A Year By The Sea, p. 73-74

No Place LIke Home - Missoula, Montana

We passed this lovely view midst a meandering Sunday evening bike ride to see what was at the west end of South Avenue. (In case you wonder, it's NOT the one lane bridge envisioned in my brain - THAT is at the west end of North Avenue, and now I can keep this tidbit straight in my brain.) 
Despite the scores of meadow-mountain-sky photos in my snapshot history, I was drawn yet again to the contrasting blue and gold, the tenacious weathered post, the wind visible in varied cloud shapes. The Best Husband Ever stopped and waited - without complaint! - yet again as I snap-snap-snapped away at minutely adjusted angles. (However, his goodwill stopped short of sympathy when my front bike tyre shifted and shimmied to deliver a smack of bike frame against my right knee. But then, there was no blood, so I should be glad he at least didn't guffaw as a sister might in similar circumstance - once she knew you were okay.) 
Truth be told, I almost didn't stop, on grounds that I'd taken and posted enough photos of similar views. 
But then I rebelled at such sad pseudo-logic, instead choosing to unapologetically partake of and mark the beauty of that very moment, which is unique from any other composition of the same elements before and since. 
And so it should be with our days that we describe as, "Not much..." when asked what we've been up to lately. What if we rather say the truth of, "Oh, I've been glorying in the small beauties of weed puffs and random yard art along my lunchtime walking route!" Perhaps we'd spark a small revolution in defense of the daily intricate beauties of home, even if just in the heart of that one person.
As much as I love to travel and engage with new friends and surroundings, I love to be at home, and am always a bit torn at the crossroads of these two yens. So, reading the following quote was akin to the distilling of tension when ending chords of a song resolve. 
I hope you are likewise provoked to relish the beauty in today's ordinary, wherever you are located.

“Why do you go away? 
So that you can come back. 
So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. 
And the people there see you differently, too. 
Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”
  - Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

Come Along - Missoula, Montana

Sometimes I overhear the music of everyday words drifting in from worlds foreign to me : come-along, cat's paw, shingle froe, adze; copper John, Matuka muddler, bunny midge, rusty spinner. Their rhythms, on a native speaker's tongue, lazily swirl and quaver; it's a little mesmerizing, and worth simply enjoying the language for its own sound. 

Too often we want to understand, to confirm exact definitions, to parse meaning from the alternating minutiae and overwhelming in our lives. That's all fine and good, but sometimes we just need to give ourselves permission to simply be, to experience this 'now' for its own merit, even if we must mine deep to find it.