May is a beautiful month. The trees are in leaf. The flowers are blooming. Spring has fully come into own and summer is on the way. The month opens with May Day which celebrates workers around the world and closes with Memorial Day which celebrates those who have died. In between Mother’s Day is observed. This year it is May 9. There are other smaller observances but no major holidays. Perhaps May could be celebrated not for so many grand occasions but just for the everyday joys of an ordinary month. My wife’s mother had a simple hand lettered card pinned up in her kitchen which read “Ordinary day, help me recognize what a treasure you are.” It is a good thought for us as Christians which is picked up by Christians songs like Day by Day or Moment by Moment. God’s presence is with us in every day, in every moment. As he is with us in the great crises of our lives; He is there in the triumphal moments of our lives, but He is also there quietly in the ordinary gentle moments of life. I find great comfort in that realization. It is the ordinary part of family life that I most treasure. It is there where I am happiest. Certainly I enjoy the “great moments” and I am thankful for my family in the crisis times. Real joy comes to me in the everyday moments. The morning greeting, the good night kiss, the shared meals, the familiar jokes, the linked emotions, the hugs, the conversations, these small things of life are where life is really lived it seems to me. In these moments we are fully there and God is there as well. Family life is not the only place that the beauty of the ordinary is experienced, but it is one of those places. In some church traditions the time between Jan. 6 and Lent and the time between Ascension and Advent is called Ordinary Time while this is based on the numbers (ordinals), it is 33 or 34 Sundays out of the year. I like to think it also acknowledges the value of the ordinary in Christian experience.