Everyday God
Paula Gooder is a freelance writer and lecturer in biblical studies. She is Canon Theologian of Birmingham Cathedral, a Reader in the Church of England, and a member of General Synod.
Her numerous books include The Meaning is in the Waiting: The Spirit of Advent (Canterbury Press), Lentwise: Spiritual Essentials for Real Life (Church House Publishing), and Exploring New Testament Greek: A Way In (SCM Press).
She lives in Birmingham.
Also by the same author
Available from Canterbury Press:
The Meaning is in the Waiting: The Spirit of Advent
This Risen Existence: The Spirit of Easter
www.canterburypress.co.uk
Everyday God
The Spirit of the Ordinary
Paula Gooder
Copyright information
© Paula Gooder 2012
First published in 2012 by the Canterbury Press Norwich
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Canterbury Press is an imprint of Hymns Ancient & Modern Ltd (a registered charity)
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, Canterbury Press.
The Author has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the Author of this Work
The R. S. Thomas poem ‘The Bright Field’ is from Collected Poems: 1945–1990, 2000, and is reproduced by permission of Orion Books.
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
978 1 84825 116 8
Typeset by Regent Typesetting, London
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon
Dedication
For Rachel Christophers,
whose extraordinary wisdom
has helped me to love the ordinary
CONTENTS
Introduction: Reflections on the Importance of Being Ordinary
Part Three: Living Extraordinary Ordinary Lives
5. The Call to Extraordinariness
HOW TO READ THIS BOOK
The problem with writing a book about ordinariness is that it risks being seen as thoroughly boring. The theme doesn’t suggest excitement in any shape or form. Ordinariness is not exhilarating; it does not imply stimulation or interest. Surely ordinariness is something to be shunned in favour of things that are special, newer, bigger and better? The difficulty with this, however, is that while occasionally we can indulge in special, exciting, bigger and better events, a large part of our life is ordinary. It doesn’t really matter how glamorous (or not) your life is, you still need to do ordinary things like travelling to work, brushing your teeth or doing the weekly shop. We all have long periods of ordinariness and in these periods is a richness, a depth of potential experience which we need to encounter. This book seeks to take the time to savour ordinariness and to discern a little more what a spirituality of ordinariness might look like. It seeks to encounter again not only the importance of ordinariness but the inspiration that we can gain from a deeper and more sustained reflection on the everyday.
This book falls into what is slowly becoming a series. The series began with a book on Advent, The Meaning is in the Waiting: The Spirit of Advent, which I was asked to write. I enjoyed it so much that I begged my publisher to let me write another based around my favourite season of Easter, This Risen Existence: The Spirit of Easter. Then, having done two, the series took on a life of its own in my head and almost before I was conscious of it, I asked whether I could tack on something on the longest season of the church’s year, known as Ordinary Time.1
Books such as these are not designed to tell you everything you need to know about Advent, Easter or Ordinary Time – there are plenty of other books that do that much better than this one could. Nor are they designed to go through expounding the lectionary readings for people preparing to preach; again Christian bookshops are full of such volumes. Instead, in this book, as much as in the Advent and Easter books, I am trying to capture an essence, to communicate a feeling about a season which may help us to encounter that season more intentionally and with a clearer insight into what we might learn about God and ourselves during that season.
Of course Ordinary Time is probably the soggiest season of all. Very few if any people enter Ordinary Time with any intention other than allowing it to slide by until the Kingdom season and Advent hove into view once more. Few people are even conscious that they are in Ordinary Time when they are. Nevertheless it is a good time of the year to stop and reflect about the importance of ordinariness. I remain passionately convinced that we need to look again at a spirituality of ordinariness because without a proper understanding of the importance of ordinariness, our lives become an impoverished waiting room, as we loiter between one big event and another.
It doesn’t matter at all whether you are reading this book in Ordinary Time or not; it doesn’t even matter if you have never even heard of Ordinary Time. What is important is the celebration of the ordinary in all its forms: in the lives of ordinary people; in a God who defies our best attempts to put him in a gilded palace; in a kingdom that is best likened to seeds, yeast and fishing nets, and in everyday decisions which, lived out with