Perspective

In the prelude to Oriah Mountain Dreamer’s Book, The Dance, she writes: “What if the question is not why am I so infrequently the person I really want to be, but why do I so infrequently want to be the person I really am?”  What if we took another look at our own perceived unexceptionality – one that claimed the goodness of God’s creation, and opened itself to the possibility of grace infusing our daily living? 

Unexceptionally

It might describe the way

a job is performed;

mundanely, without much merit,

no points for style or innovation.

Or be the unimaginative antithesis

of the superlative adverb,

spotlighting the chasm between

charisma and ordinariness.

But what if it were something altogether different;

something that lay claim to the grace of uniqueness?

If competition and comparison were dispensed with,

measurement would come from the holy within.

We wanted to flash and sparkle,

like well-orchestrated fireworks;

bursts of purple, followed

by sparkles of brilliant white.

Instead, what happened was

unceremonious fizzle, copious smoke

tearing all adjacent eyes,

pointing at nothing more than mystery.

But from the congregation

comes a quiet sense of reverent wonder;

silent adulation of holy applause:

Muchos gracias for accepting the grace

to be you without exception!

© 2015 Todd Jenkins