Friday, September 29, 2017

Opening our Eyes to the Remarkable Ordinary

Sometimes we need to learn to open our eyes and see God at work. Yes, learn to see Him at work. Sometimes it’s obvious, but other times, we have to force ourselves to think about why we’re not seeing God in our neighborhood and in our lives.  
Frederick Buechner writes in such an engaging style that it’s easy to gloss over the important stuff without even seeing it. My how art imitates life. His book The Remarkable Ordinary: How to Stop, Look and Listen to Life (Zondervan, 2017) points out that we are often so busy looking for something beyond ordinary that we don’t see the remarkable. It’s happening here. It’s happening now. And yet we miss it.

Sometimes we need to slow down, not easy to do in today’s hectic world, and be careful that you don’t fall into the trap that Buechner, in his 90’s has no choice but to slow down. Being slow is a learned art form.  And it’s in art that we often see the remarkable, or at least teaches us what to be looking for. Those who have a strong faith walk might also be able to see the remarkable: after all we’re used to being told that God is present in even the smallest detail.
And this master storyteller points out the importance of laughter, but also, and no surprise here, of telling stories. Stories matter, and we all have them, but like God, like the remarkable, we often don’t see them, and so we miss out on much of what’s going on in our lives.
The Remarkable Ordinary is filled with stories. Stories that point out how we travel on a journey, to an unknown destination, but if we take time to stop, look and listen to life, we generally end up with a life of peace—better than we used to be, even if we still have room to grow.
5/5

I received a copy of this book from Handlebar in exchange for my review 

No comments:

Post a Comment