There is nothing singularly spectacular about this Saturday, but that makes the mystery of all its ordinary glory so much more beautiful.

This ordinary glory is a mysterious miracle.

The clouds broke open early, uncertain of whether to hover or hibernate into the autumn wind. I still can’t figure out the morning rhythms – of the few footsteps that pound the city pavement in the early weekend hours. Maybe it’s because the pavement gets such a beating in the Monday – Friday traffic and the millions of feet have declared moratorium for Saturday and Sunday.

But I don’t mind the quiet traffic and few pedestrians. I don’t mind that I can hear the wind and appreciate the rustle of autumn leaves. I don’t mind that I can sit for over an hour in my favorite bagel place with no one crowding me out of my seat.

Because the most ordinary things – the man in full red track suit with a mini boombox walking on Nostrand Avenue, the little child making eyes at me inside Lula Bagel Cafe, the successful scavenging for a free bed with my adorable roommate, the spontaneous errands with new friends who prefer the windows rolled down, the swapping of life stories over tacos and margaritas – the most ordinary things are all mysterious miracles.

Yes, there are defeated and damaged days in this busy-hungry place, but there are also those days (like today) that stretch out in ordinary miracles. They are strung together like garland, wrapped around slow moving hours you can feel through your fingers as you ride the wind outside the car window.

Ordinary moments.

I call them miracles and perhaps I am too cavalier with the term. Perhaps “miracle” is a word that should be guarded and ordered and sequestered for more holy conversation. I’m not sure.

I just know that it feels miraculous to live today. It feels like a slice of heaven to walk and breathe and stretch out my living deep into this Saturday as I sip espresso and plan the evening’s activities. It feels like an impossible gift when the sunlight hits my cheekbones and when a laugh escapes my lips. The impossibility of this day – even the ordinariness of breathing in and out – is enough of a miracle to me.

And so, I walk and breathe and stretch out my living tonight, in the impossible and ordinary crisp Autumn air. I fill up my lungs with everything regular and I know that there is nothing ordinary about life.

The breath in my bones is a testimony, a moving monument constructed so that I remember my Creator.