Your life is not mediocre

Sometimes, we seek it out in healthy and troubling ways alike. Sometimes it finds us, unexpectedly and by surprise, in grand and seemingly mediocre things alike, but always, joy is universal, for everyone, everywhere, right here, where you are. 

The first year my son, Sam, who turned twelve just days ago, truly got the whole Christmas morning gift thing, was a marvel to behold. With each gift he picked up and attempted to open, he shook uncontrollably, dribble streaming down his face, his cheeks bouncing with adrenalin... his joy was uncontainable. 

Who doesn't love to receive gifts? And when you give a gift, and it is received like that? With such vulnerable, wild excitement? It brings just as much joy to the giver as it does to the receiver.

I wonder if perhaps, part of the damage that is seeping its way into the essence of society, is that to replicate the feeling of receiving a gift, we take, we fill up, we extrude and chase and squeeze; wringing the life out of things and people in an attempt to find that joy again, the wonder you had as a child opening gifts at Christmas.

Maybe you long for the wonder of a miracle, to witness the grand and exciting, to feel your blood zing and your eyes grow wide, and your body shake with excitement, just like my son did that Christmas so many years ago. And in our pursuit of the glorious, in the taming and domesticating of our own innate nature, we lose sight of the fact that each day, hour, moment, minute we are alive and breathing is a gift waiting to be unwrapped by us, waiting to be embraced and held and witnessed.

The wild and holy is at your fingertips, here and now, in the essence of the life that sustains it. It's all a gift. It always has been. 

Thich Nhat Hanh said: 

"People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child-our own two eyes. All is a miracle." 

Christmas comes to show us, to remind us, to reorient us to that the fact that divinity is already doing impossible work right in the cells and atoms that make up our bodies and the world around us.

I do admit; there is a certain wonder that blooms inside of me watching my son's excitement when he opens gifts... and perhaps part of that wonder is in the exchange of generosity and love. When we are invested in the life of another human, it's not so much the gift that brings joy but the room the gift creates for joy to find its being.

Perhaps this whole life and universe and world we find ourselves in is the Creator making room and space for joy to take up. After all, God shows up in the world through you and me, and if it's all a gift, let's spend our lives unravelling it layer by layer, joy by wonder.

Anne Lamont said:

"The miracle is that we are here, that no matter how undone we've been the night before, we wake up every morning and are still here. It is phenomenal just to be."

There are no ordinary moments. There is no such thing as mediocrity. And even if you could walk on water or in thin air, the miracle would still always be coming back down to earth, to the dust and water and blood and breath of your own life, to witness the miracle taking place inside of you and from you and around you, to everyone, everywhere. 

Hold Onto This Truth: There are no ordinary moments, just strings of miraculous ones that come together and make up these impossible lives that we live. It is phenomenal just to be, to walk on the earth, To be in our own skin. 

From my upcoming Christmas series, "Everyone, Everywhere" this week with a subscription in the App.

Written by Liz Milani
Instagram: @thepracticeco