This past Sunday Christian churches of the more liturgical bent entered into something known as ordinary time.  Robert Webber explains:

The period between Pentecost and the beginning of Advent is called ordinary time.  By contrast the period through Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, the Great Triduum, and the Easter season ending on Pentecost Sunday is called extraordinary time.  Extraordinary time is so designated because its chief purpose is to celebrate the specific historic, supernatural acts of God in history that result in salvation of creatures and creation. . .

Does that mean that ordinary time is a lesser time and not spiritually formative? Not at all. . . The word ordinary is used in our Christian-year vocabulary because it serves the special nature of extraordinary time by way of contrast.  But ordinary time is anything but ordinary.

For those of us who grew up in or are still a part of non-liturgical traditions, it sounds interesting and, well, kind of normal.  Every day is sacred, all time is sacred, because God is God over time.  Still, I like the concept.  It’s weird to think that six month of the year is full of moments that flow around Christmas and Easter.  And then, suddenly, post-Pentecost, you are back to the everyday-ness of living.  In Ancient-Future Time, Webber argues that Sunday is the key to ordinary time:

In some communities Sunday is the day of revival, the day for the seeker, or the day to teach.  Historically, Sunday is the day of God’s recreation, the day that promises that God will renew the face of the earth.  Historically Sunday worship expresses three truths: It remembers God’s saving action in history; it experiences God’s renewing presence; and it anticipates the consummation of God’s work in the new heavens and the new earth.

While I don’t do the liturgical calendar well at all, I do love things that bring out Scripture and the narrative flow and story of the Bible.  There are a lot of times that my life only makes sense because of the Bible, really.  So I’m kind of glad that we’re settling into six months of “ordinary time.”  Sunday is the “high point,” but the moments in-between matter, too.

Over the next couple of days I’ll be posting some passages that I’ve heard or read over these first few days of ordinary time.  I’m reminded of Psalm 90:12, where the psalmist identified as Moses speaks:

So teach us to number our days
    that we may get a heart of wisdom.

Space enough, yes.  But time, too.