Life in the Ordinary Lane

Stottie Cake

As I mentioned in my last post, a couple of friends recently visited the northeast where I was born and lived until my early twenties.  I later lived there from the mid 1970s until I retired in 2001 when I moved down to Yeovil in the West Country.  On their return, they called round to give me some stottie cake.  That is a sort of flat bread that is typical of that region of the UK.  It took me back to my childhood and subsequent years when I lived in there.  It is traditionally eaten with ham and pease pudding (a sort of very mushy peas with the texture rather like humus).  The thing that really stuck with me was the fact of how I had actually missed eating the simple, humble stottie cake and prompted within me a desire to rekindle those pleasurable tastes.  That's often the case with things that are part of our everyday lives - we don't really think about them.  In fact we often ignore those mundane, simple pleasures in search of something a little more upmarket or exotic.  The saying 'you don't miss the water til the well runs dry' comes to mind.  I also remembered how when we returned to live in England after having lived in Argentina for 10 years, I realised just how much I had missed having the humble snack of baked beans on toast.  it seems silly really that something so ordinary would be greatly missed.


The other day I heard on a television programme someone saying 'we underestimate normal'.  For a number of years I have taken part in a health study among a million women, receiving questionnaires on a regular basis.  I have recently just posted off to them my latest completed survey.  One of the questions was about everyday living and asked if I was able to wash myself, dress, prepare food, walk unaided, do shopping and so on.  I was happy to answer 'Yes' to all the questions and then I remembered what I had heard on the TV - 'we underestimate normal'.  You would think that to answer 'yes' to such questions would be normal for anyone but for some, these activities of basic everyday living are not something that they are able to do without help.  And I had to admit that I don't always realise that I am fortunate to be able to function quite normally in most things.  When I take longer to clean the house that I used to or find that I cannot carry such heavy bags of shopping and I tend to doze off in the chair while 'watching' the news on TV, I can feel a little sorry for myself so it was a good reminder that actually I have a better quality of life than many and should be grateful for 'normal'.


There is a tendency for this attitude to attach itself to other aspects of life.  Many people love the sensational headlines and it is claimed that this is often what sells newspapers.  Ordinary, good news doesn't get a look in.  It would seem that people are not interested in the ordinary; they get carried away on the wave of sensationalism caused by eye-catching headlines.  Sadly it's a bit like some Christians who crave the excitement of large gatherings and search after the next big thing, as if God is only found in the spectacular.  I am reminded that in the Bible when God called Moses to free the Israelites from Egypt, Moses felt inadequate and questioned how he could do such an enormous task.  God's reply was a question, 'What do you have in your hand?'  He didn't give him a list of necessary equipment that he somehow needed to acquire before he could set off on the momentous journey back to Egypt.  He was to use just what he had, what he used every day in his work, his staff.  God used what Moses already had as part of his daily life and used it to work the miracles before Pharaoh.


When Jesus fed the 5000, he didn't send the disciples off with a long list of things to bring back.  He took what anyone would have on a day out in the country - a packed lunch, nothing spectacular, just two small fish and some bread for a hungry young lad.  What is spectacular about how God works is that He takes the ordinary and makes it extraordinary.  He takes the mundane, everyday, nothing special along with ordinary, nothing special people and performs miracles through their ordinary-ness to bless and feed others.  The amazing gifts of the Holy Spirit are wonderful and it is indeed great to experience such gifts and see the wonderful outpourings of God but it would be wrong to think that God only works through the spectacular.  God is in the day-to-day living and works through the ordinary everyday occurrences and speaks to us and through us to others.  It is good to seek spiritual gifts and be part of a big move of God but we must be careful that we don't waste a lot of energy craving after the spectacular in order to find God while ignoring (and sometimes even demeaning) what we already have.  It's a bit like the elder son who returns from his work in the fields and hears what a great time his prodigal brother is having back at the house and he complains to his father.  His father reminds him that everything they were enjoying at that moment had been there all the time if only the elder brother had realised it.  He is already with us in so many ordinary ways if we only stop and look for Him.