a blessing for an ordinary day (because something terrible is not happening for once)

Lord, here I am.

How strange it is, that some days feel like hurricanes
and others like glassy seas
and others like nothing much at all.

Today is a cosmic shrug.

My day planner says,
rather conveniently,
that I will not need you,
cry for you, reach for you.

Ordinarily, I might not think of you at all.

Except, if you don’t mind,
let me notice you.

Show up in the small necessities and everyday graces.

God, be bread.
Be water.
Be laundry.

Be the coffee cup in my hands
and the reason to calm down in traffic.

Be the gentler tone in my insistence today
that people pick up after themselves for once.

Be the reason I feel loved
when I catch my own reflection
or feel my own self-loathing
fluttering in my stomach.

Calm my mind,
lift my spirit,
make this dumb, ordinary day
my prayer of thanks.

Earth is so thick with divine possibility
that it is a wonder we can walk anywhere
without cracking our shins on altars.”

—Barbara Brown Taylor

Looking for more blessings?

The Lives We Actually Have is a collection of 100 blessings to bless the ordinary, garbage, lovely, or grief-stricken days. You know, the days we actually have. So if you want a beautiful collection of blessings to return to time and again or to give to a friend, this is for you.

Sign up here to receive these blessings each week in your inbox.

Make your inbox a little more human.