When you want more than ordinary days
With rolled up sleeves I pull a few soup bowls out of the sanitizing water and place them on the rack to drip themselves dry. I am tired and ready for dinner, but in this moment I feel nothing but complete contentment to be standing in the back of a little kitchen, hidden from the sight of everyone on Market Street, doing the dishes.
"It's been a few weeks now, and the element of fun hasn't worn off yet. I just love it here," I say to my friend and co-worker, Morgan. She's beside me, scrubbing a few of the last cups and plates.
"Why do you think that is?" she asks.
I set another bowl on the rack and reach in to grab a few lonely spoons from the bottom of the steel sink, and simultaneously reach into the recesses of my mind and ponder her question. Why? Why am I so content in a job that I am working simply because I have to? When going through a preliminary college course focused on discovering my life goals and purpose, I never wrote about working at a bakery, serving people cupcakes, and washing dishes, in essence, doing ordinary things. I wrote about helping abused children, spreading the Gospel, and building a life dedicated to the least of these and surrounded in community and love. It's a romantic vision, a grand symphony with all these crescendos and grand acts of valor and sacrifice. Everything but ordinary. Though I should say that Poppleton bakery probably is the sweetest place to work at on Market, it's still something that I'm doing simply because it's what will help me get to that "place God is calling me to be". Someplace extraordinary.
But as I work towards this "place" I can hear Jim Moriarty breathing down my neck: Don't be ordinary. Don't be boring. It makes one's heart have abnormal palpitations to constantly be under the stress that in order for life to be good, it's got to be this exhilarating ride of fascinating new sensations all.the.time. The little extraordinary things like tulips and pearly white frosted cupcakes are lost in the need for glamour 24/7.
All this school year I've been operating underneath an anxious motivation to just get there already. Pull the act together, skip through parts if I need to, just get where I'm supposed to be. And I've heard the birds singing, reminding me that I've got places to grow and learn in right here, right now, but I haven't really paid attention to them.
Instead, I've been locked in survival mode and plowing through books, midterms, finals, and college credits with a single minded determination. Get there. Get there. Along the way, I handed in my résumé at a local bakery because it was another scribble on my to-do list: get a job. I was accepted, trained, checked it off the list, and was then shocked to find a peculiar sense of "slow-it-down" growing on my heart the same way that grass grows between two sidewalks in hopes that someone will notice. It took me a while, but I see it now... I notice what a great life really is.
A great life is a bunch of ordinary days lived well. And contentment? Elusive contentment, it's found in people, not places.
I let the spoons clink together on the rack and give my answer,
"It's the people." It's not just interacting with customers, not just simply giving people food: it's being part of a community. It's fellowshipping on test-tastes of lime frosting and sausage soup, sharing laughter as one of us misunderstands what the other said with comical results, or finding out who grabbed the roll of paper towels from the basement so that we can thank them. It's all food and love there. And perhaps that's why it's so fabulous.
I sigh and say it again, "Yeah, it's the people."
Cut away the edges of my career choice, my calling, and you'll find what it's all about: people. Ordinary days filled with loving people in extraordinary ways...and by that I mean smiles, hugs, a listening ear--things this harsh world doesn't offer.
All this time I've been counting down the months, hurrying the days, and now I'm finding it easier to say, "Let's just be fully right here and let that be enough."
Living that way makes ordinary days not so ordinary after all.
"It's been a few weeks now, and the element of fun hasn't worn off yet. I just love it here," I say to my friend and co-worker, Morgan. She's beside me, scrubbing a few of the last cups and plates.
"Why do you think that is?" she asks.
I set another bowl on the rack and reach in to grab a few lonely spoons from the bottom of the steel sink, and simultaneously reach into the recesses of my mind and ponder her question. Why? Why am I so content in a job that I am working simply because I have to? When going through a preliminary college course focused on discovering my life goals and purpose, I never wrote about working at a bakery, serving people cupcakes, and washing dishes, in essence, doing ordinary things. I wrote about helping abused children, spreading the Gospel, and building a life dedicated to the least of these and surrounded in community and love. It's a romantic vision, a grand symphony with all these crescendos and grand acts of valor and sacrifice. Everything but ordinary. Though I should say that Poppleton bakery probably is the sweetest place to work at on Market, it's still something that I'm doing simply because it's what will help me get to that "place God is calling me to be". Someplace extraordinary.
But as I work towards this "place" I can hear Jim Moriarty breathing down my neck: Don't be ordinary. Don't be boring. It makes one's heart have abnormal palpitations to constantly be under the stress that in order for life to be good, it's got to be this exhilarating ride of fascinating new sensations all.the.time. The little extraordinary things like tulips and pearly white frosted cupcakes are lost in the need for glamour 24/7.
All this school year I've been operating underneath an anxious motivation to just get there already. Pull the act together, skip through parts if I need to, just get where I'm supposed to be. And I've heard the birds singing, reminding me that I've got places to grow and learn in right here, right now, but I haven't really paid attention to them.
Instead, I've been locked in survival mode and plowing through books, midterms, finals, and college credits with a single minded determination. Get there. Get there. Along the way, I handed in my résumé at a local bakery because it was another scribble on my to-do list: get a job. I was accepted, trained, checked it off the list, and was then shocked to find a peculiar sense of "slow-it-down" growing on my heart the same way that grass grows between two sidewalks in hopes that someone will notice. It took me a while, but I see it now... I notice what a great life really is.
A great life is a bunch of ordinary days lived well. And contentment? Elusive contentment, it's found in people, not places.
I let the spoons clink together on the rack and give my answer,
"It's the people." It's not just interacting with customers, not just simply giving people food: it's being part of a community. It's fellowshipping on test-tastes of lime frosting and sausage soup, sharing laughter as one of us misunderstands what the other said with comical results, or finding out who grabbed the roll of paper towels from the basement so that we can thank them. It's all food and love there. And perhaps that's why it's so fabulous.
I sigh and say it again, "Yeah, it's the people."
Cut away the edges of my career choice, my calling, and you'll find what it's all about: people. Ordinary days filled with loving people in extraordinary ways...and by that I mean smiles, hugs, a listening ear--things this harsh world doesn't offer.
All this time I've been counting down the months, hurrying the days, and now I'm finding it easier to say, "Let's just be fully right here and let that be enough."
Living that way makes ordinary days not so ordinary after all.
Comments
Post a Comment