The Hidden Beauty of Everyday Life

“THERE is beauty, grace, mystery, and love all around us: all we have to do is pause and take the time to be attentive and to lean into the presence of God in everyday life.” That is the wonderful and salutary message in this brief but poignant volume of spiritual essays by Kent Nerburn. In “The Sermon of the Birds”, the author is in Oxford, England, when he hears a birdsong outside his window. The music is so strange and enchanting that it compels him to ask several important questions and to ponder its meanings.

“Our lives are filled with moments like these — ordinary moments when the hidden beauty of life breaks into our everyday awareness like an unbidden shaft of light. It is a brush with the sacred, a near occasion of grace.

“Too often we are blind to these moments. We are busy with our daily obligations and too occupied with our comings and goings to surround our hearts with the quiet that is necessary to hear life’s softer songs.

“There is no shame in this. We are only human, and the demands of life make a raucous noise. But we must not let those demands drown out the quieter voices of the spirit. We must take the time to stop and listen, knowing that the voice of the spirit speaks more often in a whisper than a shout.

“For spirituality is far more than religious practice. It is a cast of mind, a leaning of the heart, a willingness to see the shadow of the divine mystery in all people and all things. It is feeling the presence of God in every encounter, and seeing the reflection of the divine in the face of every person we meet on the street.”