• by Michele Pike • Happily, I found this quote: “ When your life is filled with the desire to see the holiness in everyday life, something magical happens; ordinary life becomes extraordinary, and the very process of life begins to nourish your soul” – Rabbi Harold Kushner
I felt somewhat guilty that over the years I’d given up practicing those rituals I grew up with in favor of those that spoke more directly to my soul. Reading this quote reminded me, the basic tenet of all religions is that we all spring from the same wondrous Source. Connection to that life-giving fount is our birthright. We need only to desire and seek it sincerely, and it blooms in our daily worlds with exuberance, love and a nurturing union.
This quote helped me realize that I haven’t forsaken all that my parents, religious school teachers, camp counselors, and Rabbi tried to instill in me. On the contrary, I’ve built upon it. The God that was my Lord has become my friend, as well. I used to feel left out and alone, incapable of divinity because it was so lofty and my life was so ordinary. Now I realize that the Divine was always all around me; I just wasn’t seeing.
Incredibly grateful for that which unites us, I feel a deep desire to emulate such a force of acceptance, forgiveness, nurturance, service, and abiding joy. My life is still ordinary—I work, pay bills, garden, play with my friends, and fall asleep at the end of the day, tired from my busyness. But each day I awake with a purpose: to acknowledge the unity of all beings, and to love them as they are (myself included). Going to bed at night I’m fulfilled knowing that we are all connected to each other and to the Divine beyond the veil of seeming separation. We each have the power to lift that veil every day and peek at the holiness of life’s continuous communion.