After living through the COVID years, I’m not sure that I will ever think about years, months, and days in quite the same way. I would like to think that I will greet each new day with a deepening awareness of the gift that it is. As true as that is, I know myself well enough to know that I am susceptible to missing the wonder of the ordinary. How many times have I found myself awakened by the extraordinary in the midst of what I thought looked like just another day!

Reflecting on the year just completed, I’m gathering moments when my heart raced, my eyes were moistened, and/or my spirit was warmed. I am thinking of. . .

• Days when we were on the Town Green passing out free cookies and talking to people.
• Days when we were again on the Town Green, working with neighbors in the community garden.
• The day we celebrated Reverend Mary Hoadley’s ordination and installed her as the settled pastor of the Brownington Church.
• The evening we gathered on the Green across from Willey’s with our neighbors who were angry and grieving after the Supreme Court handed down the Dobbs decision.
• The day some of us joined with other Vermonters on the Statehouse lawn to grieve the tragedy of Uvalde and to ask one more time for meaningful action to address gun violence in our country.
• Days spent planning, preparing, and serving our Ukrainian/Afghan benefit meal, sharing community and doing the good that we could do.
• The days we built a fire in the side yard of the church and roasted hot dogs and made s’mores.
• The Sunday we baptized Ashton Casavant.
• Gathering together on Christmas Eve in the sanctuary for the first time since COVID and remembering the dear souls who are no longer with us in body, but whose spirits pervaded our holy space.
• On that same evening, looking out in our congregation and seeing my sons sitting next to their mother.

I’m remembering these days and other days, wondering — is there really such a thing as an ordinary day?