Greg's Weekly Word: "holiday"

I hope you all had a nice holiday weekend, as we celebrated and remembered those who have died in military service to our country. (And you can read about the Black origins of Memorial Day, right here in our own state!)

My guess is, most of us marked the holiday by having a day off, or a day away. Suzy and I went to the Atlanta Braves game.

And it makes sense to have time away or apart from the ordinary, everyday routines. After all, holiday means (wait for it...) "holy day." It originally referred to feast days in the Church calendar, celebrating the lives of saints or marking particular holy days within the liturgical year. And there are a lot of holidays...even more if you include societal holidays.

But I think we need more...

Not time off from work (although that is nice). Not a set-apart day to get away. We need more opportunities to discover the holy in every day. So I wonder if we might practice seeing every day as a holiday/holy-day - looking for God's presence in even the most ordinary days...finding ways to engage in God's holy work even in the most mundane tasks.

How might we sense God's imprint in creation when we are cutting the grass, or weeding a garden? How could we offer gratitude for the dignity of work when we are preparing spreadsheets or answering emails? How might we see laundry or cleaning as an act in which God's presence could be remembered and acknowledged?

By becoming more purposefully aware of God's presence and activity in the midst of our everyday lives - looking for the extraordinary in the ordinary - we might realize that every day is a holy-day/holiday. And that is certainly something worth celebrating!

(And here's Madonna's song, Holiday, for your listening enjoyment.)

- GJD