Extraordinary Times

"Winners are ordinary people with extraordinary heart"
-unknown

The Olympics are in full swing and , human rights issues aside, the televisions on the Sunflower farm are all tuned in to the competition and the stories of ordinary people performing extraordinary feats.

I have to believe that it is more transformative to the Chinese people and their society to witness first hand the ideals of the Olympic movement, than to be excluded. After all, Christ himself sat down with thieves and prostitutes.

But my purpose in this post is not to discuss international politics, but rather to place the events of the last week into some sort of comprehensive framework. I believe that our best nature, our highest potential, our greatest joy and contentment spring from wholeness.

All of creation is one. And the more we can live out of that wholeness, the better off we will be.

And so I find myself lost in contemplation of how a new baby, a wedding, an extended family visit, and the arrival of yet another Olympic games relate to each other.

When asked by sports commentators, how he managed to overtake the French anchor at the very last moment of the U.S. men's 4x100m free relay, Jason Lezak, who swam the greatest anchor leg in relay history, had this to say:

"People always step up and do things out of the ordinary at the Olympics."

I remember Mother Theresa's famous quote:

"We cannot do great things, but we can do small things, with great love."

And I wonder at the capacity for humankind to surpass our own expectations. To step up. To let great love:

• of family
• of friends
• of teammates
• of country
• of God
• of all mankind

transform the ordinary.

Whether it is the wonder in the eyes of my younger son and the catch in his voice as he talks about his new son, the joy in my brother-in-law's voice as he greets us all after ten long years without much contact, or the tears in the eyes of an athlete as she listens to the strains of her national anthem.

There is power in love to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary.

Rarely has an ordinary week in my life been so extraordinarily full of love.

Baby Boy/Family Man (Don't you think he has earned a new blog name?) has taken Conner home from the hospital and is settling in to life as usual (granting that "usual" has changed in ways beyond his ken.) The new parents are exhausted, but happy, and Conner is a little miracle.

And I find myself beset with ideas for baby designs: Birds and bees. Little Boy Blue.

It's official; I'm infatuated.

Every so often, we are blessed to witness ordinary people do extraordinary things. The fabric of our lives disolves about us and reforms into a new garment within us. We are humbled and more than a little awed by our peek beyond the veil.

Magnificent, all-encompassing, manifest love.

Extraordinary...