Yesterday was the day of Pentecost in the church calendar, a celebration of the sending of the Spirit 50 days after the resurrection of Jesus.  I marked the occasion yesterday with a song, but I want to say one or two more things about it before the week gets away from me.

Pentecost marks the end of what I guess I consider “extraordinary” time in the church calendar.  For the most part, the time between Advent (usually in November) and Passover (in May) is a time to retrace the Biblical Story from the events surrounding the birth of Jesus through his suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension, and ending in Pentecost.  I say “extraordinary” because I’m a low-church Baptist with amateur knowledge of liturgical things.  We have now entered the “ordinary” time of the calendar.  “Ordinary,” according to what I have looked into, is more about “ordered” and “orderly” time than it is about “common day-to-day existence.”  Regardless, this chunk of time is meant to be lived in light of the events of “extraordinary” time, which is key to everyday Christian living.

I hope to spend the rest of my life marking time with the church calendar, with the life of Christ leading to the sending of the Spirit.  It seems fitting, appropriate to do so.  This time around, I found more resonance with Lent and Eastertide than with Advent, which is odd for me.  This Lent I wrote and reflected on Erik Varden’s The Shattering of Loneliness.  I tried having a few other practices that simplified life and made some space not normally there (things about diet and sleep and reading shorter books).  I tried to bring some of those practices over into Eastertide, though one of the best things I did was start most mornings with “Christ is Risen from the Dead” by Matt Maher.

There’s a part of me that is sad to see the “extraordinary” season go.  It’s nice having a framework beyond yourself for things.  I’ll get more into my plans for at least the first month or so of “ordinary time,” but for now I just want to mark “extraordinary time’s” passage.  We live in light of the whole Biblical Story, of course, and every Sunday is intended to be an Easter resurrection celebration.  Every day is important, too.  The events of “extraordinary time” remind me of that.