Let’s do a little word-association exercise. What is the first word that comes to mind when you hear the word…

• Ordinary
• Normal
• Average

What was your initial response to the words above? What kind of feelings do these words generate? Would you describe these feelings as positive or negative?

What do you picture in your mind when you hear these words? Is it something desirable or undesirable?

The fundamental question at the heart of this exercise is this: Is ordinary good or bad? We know that last is bad, and first is good, but what is average? We know that abnormal is undesirable and perfect is unrealistic, so what is normal?

The Search for the Average American

Kevin O’Keefe began research on his book The Average American: The Extraordinary Search for the Nation’s Most Ordinary Citizen, in part, to discover what America thinks of averageness. He asks, “[D]oes being average in our culture mean losing, or winning?” (50)

According to popular advertisements, ordinary is undesirable – something to escape from rather than be thankful for. O’Keefe highlights many advertisements that take this stance:

A national campaign for Wachovia promises to provide “Uncommon Wisdom.” Another financial services company, E*Trade, urges us to “Challenge the Ordinary.” Nissan wants us to “Escape the Ordinary,” and Butterfinger to “Break Out of the Ordinary.” The respective slogans for Corona and Red Hook Ale are “Miles Away from the Ordinary” and “Defy Ordinary.” A Pepperidge Farms commercial concludes with the tagline “Never Have an Ordinary Day.” (All of this from companies that want to handle your money or sell you cars, candy bars, beer, or, literally, white bread.) Universal Orlando Resort wants us to “Take a Vacation from the Ordinary.” (22-23)

What is so bad about “the ordinary” that advertisers feel that they must rescue us from it? Are we losers if everything from our candy to our financial situation is ordinary [although it must be noted that “[t]oday’s average-income Americans are better off financially than over 99 percent of people who have ever lived” (57)]? Are we winners or losers if we are simply average?

It is commonly assumed that sports are about extraordinary achievements. Though true,[1] O’Keefe notes that

In Major League Baseball, “ordinary effort” is the level players must reach to have their defensive play praised in the history books. Official scorers apply that standard when deciding if a fielder should be credited with an error-free play. On offense, players are predominately defined by their “average.” For more than sixty years, every major league hitter has finished the season with an average of under .400; they each failed as a batter more than six out of ten times. (51)

A common saying in sports is “winning is everything.” But is this the case? For many who play sports, winning is not nearly as important as enjoying the game and one’s fellow players. “If kids were in charge, there would still be a retreat from a win-only mentality. Some 64 percent of young athletes would rather play on a losing team for a coach they like than on a winning team for a coach they dislike, a November 2005 Sports Illustrated for Kids survey shows.” (52)

Throughout the book, O’Keefe discovers sports that offer awards for ordinary achievements. One recipient of a “Mediocre Award” boasts, “We are all losers, so lighten up and spread peace and joy.” (51)

Based on 140 criteria obtained from census information, polls, and various studies, O’Keefe identified the most average town in America (Windham, Connecticut) and after a long search, happened upon a man who met all 140 criteria within that town – Robert Burns (a.k.a. Zooman), a maintenance worker at Windham Tech. Robert is a happy husband, devoted father, good neighbor, faithful worker, committed church-goer, and patriotic citizen. He loves God, family, community, and nation. He is not “great” but he is certainly good. In spite of his averageness, O’Keefe experiences a deep and profound appreciation not only for Robert, but also for ordinary life in all its glory.

Joy in the Ordinary

The book raises issues that are precious to me. I have found that the greatest experiences, the most profound joys, the deepest peace, and the warmest satisfactions are found in ordinary, average, everyday, common existence. Even more, I have found that it is in the ordinary movements of life that the transcendent is most clearly encountered: a simple piece of bread, a normal cup of wine, a basin full of water, a meal with family and friends, a chance encounter in a grocery store, a short discussion over coffee, the smile of a passing stranger, the embrace of a child, a cool breeze upon my cheek, the calm of a hot bath. The list could go on indefinitely. Ordinary life provides an endless supply of sacramental moments.

I find the same is true with people. There is a reason that O’Keefe mentions in a footnote that the “most successful films actually feature ‘ordinary’ characters. After all, to get pulled into the characters’ lives, we need to relate to them (thus one reason why Everyman actor Tom Hanks may be the most popular film star of his generation” (53). Most people are ordinary, average, common folk. In spite of this – or perhaps, because of this – they manifest the diverse splendor and beauty of God.

I believe that it is for this reason that the stories of the Bible resonate so deeply with our hearts. Although we sometimes forget this fact, the truth is that the characters of the Bible were simple, ordinary, average, common folk like us who opened their hearts and lives to the transforming power of God. All the common (and sometimes, not-so-common) stories fit together into an overarching narrative that exposes God’s great plan to renew the world. The great story of redemption is composed of a seemingly endless array of simple, common stories about ordinary people touched by the Divine. For this reason, we know that our story can also find its place in God’s story. There is room for all – but especially the common, average, simple, ordinary men and women of the world.

In short, when we strip away the gloss we find that most of the characters in the Bible were ordinary, average, common folk like you and me. Therefore, it should not surprise us that when Jesus puts together a team to carry on his mission, he gathers together a group of common, average, everyday, working-class folk – fisherman, tax-collectors, farmers, and other peasants. This should not surprise us, because, in spite of his uniqueness, Jesus came across as plain and ordinary.[2] We know this because of all the average, common folk – including children – who felt free to approach him.

Perhaps, one of the greatest deceptions that can be foisted upon us is the belief that having faith somehow propels us beyond the ordinary. It is this very attitude that sets us up for great disappointment – with our own lives, and with others. In C. S. Lewis’ classic book, The Screwtape Letters, the arch-demon, Screwtape, counsels the demon, Wormwood, to use the ordinariness of God’s people and their shared religious experience to satanic advantage by constantly drawing attention to its commonness – its averageness. Screwtape encourages Wormwood to make Christianity seem ridiculous by focusing his subject’s attention on the ordinary folk in the pews.

Much like advertisements that promise superior thrills and uncommon experiences to make us dissatisfied with our present lot in life, the powers of evil do the same to undermine God’s work in the ordinary. The evil powers know that if God is not encountered in the normal channels of everyday life, then God won’t be encountered at all.

Even though the people of God often appear pathetically ordinary, the truth is far more glorious. In his essay, The Weight of Glory, Lewis proves that, even in the sphere of the ordinary and average, there is more than meets the eye.

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations — these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of the kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously – no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinners – no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat, the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.

So much for ordinary! And yet, only in the ordinary is this supra-ordinary reality discovered and experienced. Thus, the only way to “escape the ordinary” is by means of the ordinary.

And this brings us full circle – back to the fundamental question at the heart of our initial word-association exercise: Is ordinary good or bad?

© Richard J. Vincent, 2005