Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger

“That was it. That was all of it. A grace so ordinary there was no reason at all to remember it. Yet I have never across the forty years since it was spoken forgotten a single word. Ordinary Grace By William Kent Krueger

Ordinary Grace is set in New Bremen, Minnesota in the summer of 1961.  Nathan Drum is a methodist pastor and married to Ruth.  This is not the life Ruth thought she was going to lead.  Her husband Nathan had been changed by the War.  The men who came back from the war dealt with the effects in a variety of ways, and Nathan dellt with his using his newly found faith.  This on the surface would seem like an ideal approach to dealing with wars effects.  But this was not the man Ruth had initially fell for nor the life she intended for herself. Over the years Pastor Drum presided over several congregations and their family grew.  Nathan and Ruth had 3 children: Ariel, Frank, and Jake.  The summer of 1961 would be one like no other. It would be a summer of death. A series of deaths in fact.  These deaths would shake the Drum family and the town of New Bremen.  Each death would seem to crack and test the families foundation of love, strength, and faith. As the summer progressed and the tragedies mounted,  the novels two main characters Frank and Jake are pushed to the brink. They observe how tragedy is handled by their father, mother, grandparents, friends, and town.  As they struggle with their own comprehension of these events, they realize that both are consciously or subconsciously looking for and longing for one thing.  A miracle.  They need it. Both these brothers are loosing their orientation.  Their feet are slipping from there once solid ground. Their constant is crumbling and when things seem as if they are irreversible they are  given something. “That was it. That was all of it. A grace so ordinary there was no reason at all to remember it. Yet I have never across the forty years since it was spoken forgotten a single word."  A small ordinary grace in a small moment of time.  It was nothing of what they asked, but more than what they needed. It was not flashy, it did not turn heads, and most probably missed it.  It was an ordinary grace.

As the novel came to its conclusion, I continually found myself pondering what ordinary grace was occurring in my life. I started to look for signs of ordinary grace throughout the day.  When I first started to look, it was hard to see those ordinary graces, but little by little they would come into focus.  Those ordinary graces started to looked like: a small almost imperceptible hug from my daughter as she fell asleep in my arms.  The attentive and listening eyes from my son as I teach him the most meaningless task.  A warm breeze blowing over my family on a picture perfect summer night walk by the lakeside. The laugh of a loved one.  A ray of warm sun that you can almost touch as you pass through.  These are ordinary graces and regrettably I often pass them by. Usually they are nothing moments, but when you are looking for them they reveal themselves as more....as ordinary grace. They are small graces at the end of a long day.  They are dew drop graces during a season drought and I often miss them.  I have a small hunch that I am not the only one that is blind to these.  Our culture today idolizes being busy.  Our every waking moment is filled with something.  From our car rides, to our smartphones and smart TV's, and advertisement everywhere, we are always processing information.  We are constantly being bombarded with stimulus from every angle.  This must certainly cloud our ability to see out into the world.  It reminds me of a survival tip I once read.  If your car somehow ends up in the water and is sinking, you have to wait for the car to fill up with water before you can swim out of the window or open the door.  You can't fight the powerful water gushing in your window.  You have to wait for the water to stop flowing in before you can move out.  It's similar to our daily lives in our current culture.  With so much coming in, how do we expect to see out?  I am honestly not surprised why we don't see God anymore. How can we?  There is too much blocking our view and in those few rare instances typically during tragedy when we do consciously try to see him we look for the miracle.  We look for the burning bush. We want to see the parting of the sea. We ask for the dead man to be raised to life or the water turned to wine.  We want "the sign". Those may come occasionally, but I don't think thats a regular occurrence. What does occur regularly are the ordinary graces.  Are we seeing those? Are we looking for the wrong thing? I will be the first to admit that I don't see these ordinary graces enough.  But why don't we? It thinks its simple actually.  Because who wants ordinary!  Ordinary is bland and not exciting. We want unique, special, customized. We want our individual made to order miracle.  But there is beauty in the ordinary.  Beauty in the routine, the mundane, the simple.  And when we focus our gaze correctly, there we will see an abundance of the ordinary grace.  And in the ordinary grace is where we might find God. 

Like most the novels I enjoy or recommend they not only have a great story, but speak to something greater in you.  William Kent Krueger's novel Ordinary Grace does just that.  I invite you to slow down with me and intentionally observe the daily ordinary grace.