A picture of peace in London: The ordinary is extraordinary
Travelling in a bus across London, I looked at all the people enjoying the Saturday afternoon sun and thought of Gaza.
The people of Gaza couldn’t sit at tables with a cold drink in front of them, I thought.
Funny that. How it is the sight of people doing ordinary things that brings home how extraordinary it is. How peace is really about the ability to do ordinary things, in comfort and safety.
The ordinary is extraordinary. Pat Schneider’s poem touches on it:
The Patience of Ordinary Things
Pat Schneider
It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they’re supposed to be.
I’ve been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?
