As one who spends a fair bit of time sitting in airports, I have the opportunity to people watch. There are the elite travelers who emerge from airline lounges with their power suits and designer cases, and then there are those who are traveling for leisure, souvenirs and gifts in tow. I love seeing the variety of clothing styles depending on what region I am in, and listening in on conversations betrays regional dialects and phrases. Business deals are made or broken, discussions over the day’s events all done in the parlance of the place.
More often than not, my attention is drawn to those who sit alone, as I do. In the smaller, regional airports I see the elderly gentleman in the wheelchair, alone. I look at the gate agent as she texts on her phone after yet another flight delay, hoping to hide from the ire of the passengers who needed to arrive at their destination hours ago. There is the single mother trying to corral her children, the slouched, sad looking twenty-something with a melancholic and listless gaze. There we all sit waiting. Wondering. Is there anything more than this?
The inherent routine, mundane tasks and waiting for whatever is next on the agenda can fill the days with a deepening ennui and a longing for something greater—something like a sense of finding and fulfilling one’s potential. As one who sits anonymously in airports watching and waiting, what does “potential” even mean? In a world of social media where status is measured by the number of friends or followers, likes or shares there is often a feeling that one’s life just doesn’t measure up. And in a celebrity culture, where success is measured by beauty, wealth, or status how can one ever feel she has reached her potential? If the exceptional is the guide for achievement, how will those of us who live somewhere between the average and the ordinary ever feel we’ve arrived?
Most of us occupy an existence often filled with the mundane or the banal. Never ending housework, constant bills, and running endless errands do not make one feel substantial. These are the daily details that make up often dulling routines. Indeed, for artists and bus drivers, homemakers and neurosurgeons, astronauts and cashiers repetitive motion is more the norm than moments of great challenge or extraordinary success. With endless quotidian tasks, is it any wonder that reaching one’s potential serves as an ideal to free us from the constraints of such ordinary lives?
Continue reading Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Ordinary Greatness
