The ordinary

I wrote the other day about enjoying the ordinary. Ordinary activities have taken on new meaning to me over the last few months since returning from Africa. I met people who have so little and are among the poorest people on the earth, yet they are warm and happy people. So, I came back with new appreciation for what I used to call ordinary things.

And in the ordinary, I have found the extraordinary.

I get up early four days a week to go the local YMCA to work out. Since I get up about 6 AM, this means that it is just before sun up. I drove the two miles to the Y with a clear view to the pre–dawn sky in the east. And I saw Venus and Jupiter within about three or four degrees of each other. A simple thing, this pairing of these two planets was. Their quiet beauty struck me, shining in the pre–dawn sky.

Two planets I have seen many times before on an ordinary morning. But in an extraordinary alignment.

A couple of days later the were 1 degree apart. But I had to imagine the pairing because it is raining.