Ordinary People
Be an ordinary person.
Maxim #18
The Pharisee with head unbowed prayed in this fashion: “I give you thanks, O God, that I am not like the rest of men—grasping, crooked, adulterous—or even like this tax collector. (Luke 18:11)
One of the marks of true humility is to see oneself as an ordinary person. It is all too tempting to want to see oneself as better than others, as someone called to the extraordinary, as someone with a mission that goes beyond the ordinary existence of most people. Anne Lamott puts it this way,
Funny how that happens. I finally smiled, remembering something I heard Ram Dass say on the radio once, about somebodyism—how most of us are raised to be somebodies and what a no-win game that is to buy into, because while you may turn out to be much more somebody than somebody else, a lot of other people are going to be a lot more somebody than you. And you are going to drive yourself crazy.
Being an ordinary person takes humility and courage. It means being ok with who one is without comparing oneself to other people. It is the acceptance of the fact that in God’s mind we are already somebody who is loved and valued simply for who we are. More often than not, this means being ordinary.
The good news is that once we have decided to allow ourselves to simply be ourselves, we can focus on looking for God’s presence in the ordinary parts of our life each day.
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