Be Ordinary

Have the courage to be ordinary.

It's Zen-trendy to embrace the ordinary in objects. But we are desperately afraid to be ordinary in ourselves. We must wear an invisible designer dress to keep up with everybody else on the red carpet of enlightenment. We must be 'amazing,' 'perfect,' in 'higher consciousness.' Higher than who? When you get there, are you higher than you are?

The ordinary sparkles with uniqueness. Why dress it up? Let your naked ordinary ripen from within. Just as you are, be sweet and full of juice.

There is a deeply political point to being ordinary. Some politicians insist on American Exceptionalism. They think Americans are extra-ordinary. We aren't bound by the etiquette of the ordinary. This permits us to abuse the environment, invade the Third World, and engage in corporate pillage. Our exceptionalism destroys the earth.

Let us practice the politics of the ordinary, the etiquette of nature. When we practice environmental etiquette, the earth shares her the ancient solutions of her Grace with us. Grace shines not above nature, but through nature, and to be graceful is to be ordinary. To be ordinary is not to be static, but to grow and transcend oneself greenly. Blossom like a vine, ferment like a grape, swell with green spirit, be naturally super-natural.

Then, when we become ordinary, we can see our environment as a miracle. Not in guilty anxious self-restraint, but in spontaneous gratitude, we will stop ruining our streams, our forests, our coral, soil and sky.