Common, Ordinary, Lives

Clark Gable ?   Why Not ?

I’m very content with my ordinary life, with family, house, neighborhood, and wouldn’t have it otherwise. But sometimes after hearing the most un-ordinary news and seeing the wild (to me) headlines of gossip magazines, I wonder if I’m stupid to be happy with my ordinary life.

And so, Ethel being Ethel, I went to the dictionary and it told me that ordinary means anything so ‘everyday’, so basic, that we take it for granted, and give it no attention.

I grinned then, as I realized each of our days, begins with one ordinary event that would literally bring an end to the world if it didn’t happen. Yeah, the sun rises and it is light, and we don’t worry about it going down either. So ordinary no one even gives it a thought, but without it???  Well, for a starter, all life would soon cease to be. But oh so ordinary.

Going farther, (Well, why not?) every second, people are conceived, born, live and die. How ordinary, and yet if death didn’t come, we’d have so many people we’d be fighting for food, space, and air. Or, if conception stopped, (ho, ho, ho,) within fifty or so years, the world would be shutting down, for there’d be no one to keep it going. Or even use it.

The more I searched, the more I found that it’s the ordinary, the taken-for-granted events, that makes my world (and yours) even possible.  Water, light switches, plumbing, heating or cooling, friends, food at the stores, cars, streets, and on and on.

So ordinary, but so good, that I shall go back to what started me off on all this subject. See, I was watching TV when a retired Journalist,  who had talked with the ‘high and mighty’ of the world, was being interviewed, and was asked if there was one person that stood out above all others.

I expected him to tell of some President, teacher, inventor or such, but after a pause and with an odd smile, the Journalist shifted his body, cocked his head, nodded, and said, “Yes, I do, and it was Clark Gable, the Movie Star”. The Journalist went on, saying, ‘I had just asked Gable pretty much the same question you asked me. Of course, I knew that wherever Gable went, everyone, from Presidents on down, fawned over him, and so his answer surprised me for he answered, Yes, and  it’s my wife. ‘

I thought he might have misunderstood my question, but no, he hadn’t and went on to explain. “When I finish my day’s work, which is a great one, but when I get in my car to drive home, a Special Peace comes to me. for I know that on the other side of my own Front Door, there’s someone waiting for the sound of my key in our door, and that I complete her day, as she completes mine.”

Gable almost apologized, saying, “I’m sure that’s not the answer you expected, but, you see, I’m a very ordinary man. and knowing she is there, waiting for me, puts all else in its place.  Needed and wonderful, but none of it would be that good if it weren’t for her..”

The Journalist continued, “I’ve listened to many powerful and sincere people telling what should/shouldn’t be done to bring Peace, but Gable’s very ordinary words, of that Special Peace, possible for every one of us, stays with me, and I’ve come to see that he had matured from a man who ‘made his living as a Movie Star, and knew it was a great job’, but that ‘on the other side of his own front door,’ was one who waited for him and gave meaning to all the rest. In other words, Love.”

And so Ethel, sat back, smiled over her own ‘ordinary life’ and thought of how our Great Teacher, who never heard of a Movie Star, had also spoken of Love and Peace together. And then I actually grinned at the paradox of putting the words of Jesus and Clark Gable together, but knew they fit perfectly.

So ordinary, but the two, Love and Peace can and do make all of our lives joyous. And two experts in their own fields, agreed.   Clark and Jesus.

3 thoughts on “Common, Ordinary, Lives

  1. we just finished a 4,000 mile trip to Michigan to help our daughter pack up and prepare their house their for new tenants.
    Now a drive of that magnitude can take three days if you drive only during the day, but it can be done in 23.8’hours.
    We passed or were passed by maybe 6,000 trucks, and while we didn’t look into the faces of everyone each had an ordinary visage on his/her face. We listened to many of those drivers at rest stops and lunch counters; and while their conversations were about tire pressure, air hoses, load contents, and checking stations and things were intriguing things that we were not familiar with, they were ordinary. Big, little, black, white, short or tall, some with a strangled sort of the American lingo, others properly using the King’s Englsh. It occurred to me that for 12 to 15 hours a day they sat in their truck steering around other that weren’t so practiced in the ordinary driving skills. Our ordinary may be another’s extraordinary.
    I often asked my kids: “how did you know that?,” or “How did you do that?” For them ordinary, for me remarkable.
    Ordinary? Extraordinary, I’d say, I mean how many people know and understand the discoveries on Pluto, but these ordinary people do extraordinary things that we marvel about. It’s a great world!

    • I like that. What’s ordinary for me, may be extraordinary for another . . . or the other way around, I see my family with their Cell Phones, doing their magic with them and marvel. So ordinary to them . . . so beyond my scope. And yet, Jim, the ultimate . . . most ordinary emotion of all, that of love . . . in no matter what language, or what color skin, orr sex, or education or non education , remains the same. How I feel toward you and Adene there on the other side of the continent, good ole family love goes forth. Even those I’ve never met or seen and never will meet or see, the love, good ole family love is there. E.B.

  2. This is a great reminder for me that we may all be ordinary but inside of extraordinary is ordinary, and isn’t that wonderful. Thank you

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