We can so easily miss out on seizing the moment because we are either looking back at yesterday or anticipating tomorrow.    Sometimes we seem to be living on cruise control and not really absorbing nor realizing the beauty of  the here and now.   In this fog and funk we begin to refer to life as mundane, ho-hum, and ordinary.

Not long ago my wife Karen and I refected upon this "ordinary" trap that can so easily snare all of us human beings.    We had several folks in our congregation who were going through serious health and medical trials and treatments.    We discussed how these particular folks would simply long for and treasure a so-called ordinary day!     How their lives had changed from one day to the next when they received these medical diagnoses.   Suddenly, ordinary day became a longing.
Earlier this month I experienced a wild and chaotic day.    I took our daughter, Anna, to the college campus she attends for her classes.   As we drove onto the school grounds a policeman flagged us down, telling us to vacate the premises because the college had received a bomb threat.      Later that same day we experienced an earthquake.    Our church staff was seated around a conference table as the earth shook!     That evening a hurricane hit our Eastern coastline.      A bomb scare; an earthquake; and, a hurricane...all in the very same day!      I wondered what would be next!     I was thinking I should be alert for the locusts to come ravaging!       I can surely tell you that I welcomed ordinary after that wildly eventful day!
May we truly have our eyes open to the gift and beauty of each day!    May we recognize the special opportunity that every moment of each day offers.     And, in doing so may we see the extraordinariness of ordinary days.      Seize the day...right now!   Don't wait for tomorrow or some day.
Leo Buscaglia shares (submitted by one of his students):
Remember the day I borrowed your band new car and I dented it?   I thought you'd kill me, but you didn't.    And remember the time I dragged you to the beach, and you said it would rain, and it did?     I thought you'd say, "I told you so."   But you didn't.       Do you remember the time I flirted with all the guys to make you jealous, and you were?      I thought you'd leave me, but you didn't.     Do you remember the time I spilled strawberry pie all over your car rug?     I thought you'd hit me, but you didn't.    And remember the time I forgot to tell you the dance was formal and you showed up in jeans?   I thought you'd drop me, but you didn't.    Yes, there were lots of things you didn't do.    But you put up with me, and you loved me, and you protected me.   There were lots of things I wanted to make up to you when you returned from Viet Nam.    But you didn't.

May all your days be extraordinary!