There is a peculiar moment after a great celebration when somebody turns on the lights.
The candles have burned down. The flowers are beginning to look as though they have given all they reasonably can. The special music has ended. The saints have been properly remembered, the faithful departed have been lovingly commended to God, and somewhere in the parish hall there is probably half a tray of something covered in plastic wrap that nobody quite knows what to do with.
And then comes November 6.
No trumpet.
No procession.
No major feast demanding that we rise to the occasion.
Just Thursday.
Or Friday.
Or whatever day it happens to be when you finally notice that ordinary life has quietly returned and is standing in the kitchen asking what is for supper.
Yesterday we began thinking about this strange little stretch of the Church year between the season of saints and Christ the King. It is not really a liturgical season at all. Nobody has designed special vestments for it. There is no official colour called Slightly Tired November. There are no hymns beginning, “Lo! The middle of the month approaches.”
And yet I rather like these days.
Because most of life happens here.
Most of life does not happen on Christmas morning or Easter Day. Most marriages are lived on Tuesdays. Most friendships are built over cups of coffee nobody photographs. Most acts of courage happen without applause. Most forgiveness takes place without an organ voluntary afterwards.
And most holiness is remarkably ordinary.
That may be one of the things the saints were trying to teach us all along.
We sometimes imagine holiness as though it were a sort of spiritual fireworks display: dramatic visions, heroic sacrifices, astonishing acts of courage, and perhaps a stained-glass window installed several centuries later.
But the saints themselves usually discovered God in rather less glamorous places.
In kitchens.
In sickrooms.
In monasteries where somebody still had to peel the potatoes.
In conversations.
In disappointments.
In long stretches of prayer when absolutely nothing seemed to happen.
In communities filled with people whom God had called them to love, despite the inconvenient fact that some of those people were extremely annoying.
Which, incidentally, remains one of the strongest arguments for the existence of grace.
Holiness is rarely spectacular.
More often, holiness is the decision to get up tomorrow morning and love again.
To pray again.
To forgive again.
To hope again.
To make the phone call.
To visit the lonely person.
To feed someone who is hungry.
To listen when we would rather speak.
To say, “I was wrong.”
To say, “I forgive you.”
To say, “Come and sit here.”
And perhaps most difficult of all, to say, “God is still here,” when there seems to be very little evidence available for inspection.
The Gospel has always had this stubborn affection for small things.
A mustard seed.
A little yeast.
A cup of cold water.
A widow’s coins.
A child welcomed.
A loaf broken.
A neighbour noticed.
Jesus seems almost suspicious of our fascination with grandeur.
We keep looking for God in the earthquake, while Christ keeps pointing toward the kitchen table.
We want the heavens opened.
Jesus says, “Did you feed anybody?”
We would like a vision of angels.
Jesus wonders whether we noticed the person sitting alone.
We are prepared for a magnificent theological revelation, preferably accompanied by suitable lighting, and God quietly hands us somebody who needs kindness.
This can be terribly inconvenient.
Because spectacular holiness would occasionally be easier.
If God asked me to climb a mountain and receive tablets of stone, I could at least put it in the calendar.
But loving my neighbour?
Every day?
Even before coffee?
Surely there must have been a mistranslation somewhere.
And yet this is precisely where the Kingdom of God keeps appearing.
Not merely in the extraordinary moments, but in the faithful repetition of ordinary love.
There is something profoundly Christian about showing up.
Showing up for prayer when prayer feels dry.
Showing up for worship when we are tired.
Showing up for someone who is grieving when we do not know what to say.
Showing up for the work of justice when the work seems impossibly slow.
Showing up for reconciliation after everyone has grown weary of the conversation.
Showing up for hope when cynicism would be considerably easier.
This is the quiet discipline of November.
The leaves are falling. The days are shortening. The great celebrations behind us are beginning to fade into memory. Christ the King still waits ahead.
And here we are.
In between.
Perhaps that is precisely where God wants to meet us.
Because the Christian life is not simply about travelling from feast to feast. It is about learning to recognize Christ on the road between them.
The risen Jesus met two disciples on the road to Emmaus.
Not at the Temple.
Not during a festival.
On the road.
They were walking home disappointed.
Their great hopes had collapsed. Their theology was in pieces. Their future looked uncertain.
And Christ walked beside them.
They did not recognize him at first.
Perhaps we shouldn’t be too hard on them.
We frequently don’t either.
We look back over a perfectly ordinary day and imagine that nothing particularly spiritual happened.
We made breakfast.
Answered messages.
Went to work.
Picked up groceries.
Walked the dog.
Checked on a friend.
Made supper.
Washed the dishes.
And perhaps somewhere among all those apparently unremarkable things, Christ walked beside us.
Perhaps God was there in the patience we did not know we possessed.
Perhaps Christ was present in the conversation that lasted ten minutes longer than we had planned.
Perhaps grace appeared when we resisted the clever reply and chose kindness instead.
Perhaps the Kingdom came astonishingly close when we made room at the table.
We may spend our lives waiting for God to do something dramatic while God spends our lives doing something ordinary.
And perhaps that is one of the gifts of these in-between days.
They teach us to pay attention.
Not merely to saints in stained glass.
Not merely to kings on thrones.
But to Christ in neighbours.
Christ in strangers.
Christ in bread.
Christ in wounds.
Christ in laughter.
Christ in the weary.
Christ in the unnoticed.
Christ in the astonishing holiness of an ordinary Thursday.
Soon enough, the Church year will gather itself toward its conclusion. We will stand before the strange throne of Christ the King and discover, once again, that his crown looks remarkably like thorns and his kingdom bears very little resemblance to the kingdoms we usually build.
But before we get there, perhaps November is giving us a little practice.
Look around.
Pay attention.
Do the small thing with great love.
Make the phone call.
Share the bread.
Speak gently.
Forgive someone.
Notice somebody.
Say your prayers.
Set another place at the table.
Because the trumpets may have stopped.
The saints’ banners may have been put away.
The great feast may be over.
But God has not gone anywhere.
And grace, as usual, has already arrived before us.
The great spiritual challenge of ordinary days is not finding somewhere God is present. It is learning to notice that there is nowhere God is absent.
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Companion Prayer
God of ordinary days,
when we search for you in the spectacular,
teach us to recognize you in the small.
Meet us at kitchen tables and hospital beds,
in conversations and interruptions,
in bread shared, forgiveness offered,
neighbours noticed, and kindness quietly given.
Give us eyes attentive enough to see Christ
walking beside us on the ordinary road,
and hearts faithful enough to love you
in the person standing before us.
When the trumpets stop
and the celebrations have ended,
remind us that grace has not departed.
You are here.
You have always been here.
And wherever we go today,
you have already arrived before us.
Amen.
