Ordinary Grace

I make it a practice to look for ordinary grace in my life wherever I go.

It’s is easy to find if you look for it. Not all of these moments are photo ops but pausing for a moment to soak in the moment brings grace to my days.

Yesterday I met a group of friends at a friend’s house. What a lovely bunch of ordinary grace I experienced there. I found my friend’s home a target-rich environment for photography. Everywhere I looked I saw interesting art, objects, and textures arranged in artful ways.

Add in a way the light fell just so on these varied objects and my morning was full of ordinary grace. I couldn’t resist making some photographs.

Since I didn’t have my camera with me I used my iPhone to photograph just a few of the scenes of ordinary grace I found. Then I spent time this morning adding textures and playing with the photos to bring out the inner beauty I see in these ordinary and found items.

I don’t always photograph the ordinary grace moments, but I savor them as if I was photographing them, letting myself soak in the beauty, wonder, and spirit-lifting goodness of life.

Here are a few of the moments of ordinary grace I experienced today:

• watching fluffy snowflakes drift gracefully through the air
• seeing a Ferris Wheel turning in northeast Minneapolis with a sign pronouncing February 14 “National Ferris Wheel Day”—what an unexpected sight in the middle of winter in Minnesota
• walking through the warm familiarity of rows of book-filled shelves in a used bookstore in northeast Minneapolis I saw a couple kissing in the back room when they thought no one was looking—happy Valentine’s Day!
• looking out the window to see a lively hockey game on the pond behind our house this afternoon with at least a dozen kids and adults hitting a ball around the ice with hockey sticks
• whether intentionally crafted or an accident of this afternoon’s hockey game, I gazed out the bedroom window tonight and saw a perfect large heart shape in the snow on the pond. There were trampled areas within the heart and lots of footprints all around but the heart shape was clear and crisp.
• shortly after the hockey game ended I saw the 2 young daughters of our neighbors across the pond intently making snow angels in the freshly fallen snow on the pond. They looked like little angels themselves as they plopped in the snow and vigorously waved arms up and down, legs in and out to create their snow angels.

What ordinary grace did you experience in your life today?

May you walk in beauty.