A Perspective

This is a blog about normal things.

I take the ordinary parts of life for granted. Sunrise, sunset and all the natural functions of the world that carry on no matter who becomes a world power or who wins political debates. Food and water. A clear blue autumn sky. Other people. Not being dead.

Theologians call these things God’s “common grace.” All you did was be born—you didn’t pay the rain tax, or go to the right church, or sacrifice a goat, or fill out the proper paperwork—and yet you get rain on your lawn at the same time as your neighbor.

Undeserved gifts should not be taken for granted, no matter how small they seem. Strip your life of the ordinary pleasures and see how bleak it becomes. Sometimes I find it helpful to get the normal and the fantastical mixed up. If you think fantasy only deals with magic and wizards and elves, you have sadly limited both the fantastic and the ordinary. Who cares about a magic trinket when—guys, you won’t believe this—water falls out of the sky. What if it didn’t? What if we were responsible for keeping the earth watered by crying on it?

I have another reason for calling this the ordinary, though.

If you go back a few hundred years an “ordinary” was like an inn—they provided food, drink and lodging and were often the town’s social hub—where you connected to friends and the world around you. So that’s what I will try to provide here: a friendly voice and a good square bite of appreciation for the ordinary, fantastical things.