The Sacred Ordinary

There is a holiness we often overlook.

It doesn't arrive with trumpets or revelation. It doesn't ask for ceremony, or robes, or a spotlight. It slips quietly into the room while we're peeling vegetables, sitting with a friend in silence, or watching the light soften on the floor. It lives in the breath before the next thought. The pause in a story. The first sip of something warm on a cold morning.

The sacred is not far away. It is not reserved for temples or mountaintops or the few deemed worthy of spiritual titles. The sacred is in the small things, the overlooked things—the things we do over and over again without realizing we are offering a kind of prayer. Making the bed. Holding the door. Listening without interrupting. Lighting a candle not to chase the dark away, but to say, “I am here. I am present.”

For a long time, I thought the spiritual life had to look a certain way. That it needed structure and devotion, ritual and reverence. And in many ways, it does. But what I’ve come to see is that reverence is not a robe we put on. It’s an attention we offer. The sacred lives where our attention goes when it’s given gently, curiously, and without agenda. That means it can show up in the middle of your commute, or your breakdown, or your laughter over something silly. The Divine doesn’t wait for you to be perfect. It meets you in your mess. In the middle of it.

There is something profoundly healing about letting the ordinary be enough. About realizing that a conversation over tea can be a form of worship. That a quiet walk alone can be communion. That simply noticing, truly noticing, what’s around you can reconnect you with something ancient, something alive, something wise.

And this, I believe, is where healing begins. Not in chasing the mountaintop experience, but in learning to witness the sacred in your own life, as it is. With your grief, your joy, your confusion, your longing. You are not waiting to become spiritual; you are already deeply in it. Every breath is a chant. Every act of care is a liturgy.

So today, if you find yourself looking for peace or guidance or connection, don’t strain for it. Instead, look gently at what’s already around you. Look at your hands—what they hold, what they’ve made. Look at who’s sitting across from you. Look at the things you call ordinary and ask: What might be holy here, if I chose to see it that way?

The sacred doesn’t demand to be seen. But when we do see it, it changes how we live.

It softens us. Grounds us. Reminds us that nothing is wasted, and everything belongs.

The holy is not far from us. It’s here, in the thick of it. Still speaking.