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Finding God in Ordinary Time
Take a wide-eyed look at your life―the commonplace, joyful, and even heartbreaking events―and discover the presence of God, hidden in plain sight. Forget bowing your head and closing your eyes. The secret to prayer is what happens when you’re not trying to pray. This is the invitation of Christine Eberle’s Finding God in Ordinary Time . Each daily reflection contains a true story and a nugget of spiritual insight, accompanied by thought-provoking questions and a memorable Scripture quote. Together they reveal a God who is playful and affectionate, merciful and compassionate, and always relevant. Warm, accessible, and surprisingly funny, Christine offers spiritual nourishment to people skeptical or weary of religion, while still giving the faithful something to chew on. Simple enough to be devoured in one sitting, this intimate little book is best enjoyed slowly. Each piece deserves to be savored and revisited through the unfolding of each ordinary, extraordinary day.
- GenresNonfiction
140 pages, Paperback
Published October 2, 2018
9 people are currently reading
33 people want to read
About the author
Christine Marie Eberle
3 books17 followersAuthor, public speaker, and educator Christine Eberle passionately explores the connections between Scripture, spirituality, and everyday life. A college campus minister for 25 years, she also leads retreats, sings as a church cantor, and performs dramatic interpretations of Biblical women. In person and on the page, Christine desires both to feed the faithful and offer nourishment to people skeptical or weary of religion, insistently asking: Where is God in all this? She has found answers to this question in some surprising places, and she shares those answers--and those places--in her first book, Finding God in Ordinary Time. You can pre-order signed copies and follow her blog at christine-marie-eberle.com.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
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December 7, 2020Promoted it, loved it and am (still) praying* that everyone finds it.
*Pun intended, but truly hope everyone does find this delightfully poignant book.
*Pun intended, but truly hope everyone does find this delightfully poignant book.
August 27, 2018
There is double meaning to the title of this book. Many devotionals are written for specific times in the liturgical year, like lent or advent. This one is for the ordinary time in the liturgical year. But it also refers to finding God in the ordinary – the ordinary events, the ordinary encounters, and the ordinary people in your life.
Saint Ignatius urged his followers to “find God in all things.” (xiii) That's what Eberle has done. She pays attention and prayerfully reflects on common experiences. I think my favorite devotion was the one on morning glory. I battle the encroaching plant too. Now I will forever think of the spiritual lesson of making room for the more worthy things. Pulling up morning glory becomes a lesson for all of life.
There were a few surprises in the book. Finding God in imperfection and even failure? Reading those devotions encouraged me to pay attention, to train my eyes to notice and my heart to listen, finding God in every situation.
Eberle provides a Scripture and has added questions to stimulate thought with each devotional writing. Devotions are about the natural world, people, another culture, and the difficult events of life. While the book was generally written for individual use, she has included additional questions at the end for group use. Eberle ministers within the Catholic branch of Christianity. This protestant learned much from her writing.
I received a complimentary digital copy of this book. My comments are an independent and honest review.
Saint Ignatius urged his followers to “find God in all things.” (xiii) That's what Eberle has done. She pays attention and prayerfully reflects on common experiences. I think my favorite devotion was the one on morning glory. I battle the encroaching plant too. Now I will forever think of the spiritual lesson of making room for the more worthy things. Pulling up morning glory becomes a lesson for all of life.
There were a few surprises in the book. Finding God in imperfection and even failure? Reading those devotions encouraged me to pay attention, to train my eyes to notice and my heart to listen, finding God in every situation.
Eberle provides a Scripture and has added questions to stimulate thought with each devotional writing. Devotions are about the natural world, people, another culture, and the difficult events of life. While the book was generally written for individual use, she has included additional questions at the end for group use. Eberle ministers within the Catholic branch of Christianity. This protestant learned much from her writing.
I received a complimentary digital copy of this book. My comments are an independent and honest review.
May 11, 2019
I first saw "Finding God in Ordinary Time" by Christine Marie Eberle (Green Place Books, 2018) in the current issue of Foreword Reviews. As a publishing professional, I was drawn in by the title and by its evocative cover and trim size. I love supporting independent publishing and fresh, new writers and something made me think that this book and this author offered something special.
I was right.
As I began reading, I was captivated by the remarkable facility with words that Eberle demonstrated and by the double meaning of "ordinary time" that she unpacks in the book's introduction and sustains throughout its 122 pages.
On the one hand, Eberle's book refers to the way in which we can experience the presence of God as we journey through Ordinary Time that is a part of the liturgical church calendar - that time between Christmas and Lent and between Pentecost and Advent. On the other hand, the book simply refers to finding God (and hope, and wonder, and suffering, and joy) in ordinary things, people, events and days as we go about our lives.
"Finding God in Ordinary Time" is structured around four parts, each with seven meditations:
* Awake to See - On the natural world
* Messengers of Grace - On the people we encounter
* Far from Home - Borne out of Eberle's travels to Latin America, Ireland and beyond
* Working It Out - On questions of suffering, grief, and paying attention to the questions that arise
The book's sub-title is simply "Daily Meditations," but I could not put this book down. I will no doubt go back and re-read it in a "daily" manner, but the first time through I savored it as if one leisurely, lovely meal with a wise and winsome fellow pilgrim.
The book begins (Pedro Arupe) and ends (Mary Oliver) with beautiful poems. But Eberle's prose throughout the pages between the poetry sang even more exquisitely for this reader. I came away encouraged. I came away committed to paying even more attention to the Ordinary Time (and ordinary time) in my own life.
I came away wanting to tell others about this book!
I was right.
As I began reading, I was captivated by the remarkable facility with words that Eberle demonstrated and by the double meaning of "ordinary time" that she unpacks in the book's introduction and sustains throughout its 122 pages.
On the one hand, Eberle's book refers to the way in which we can experience the presence of God as we journey through Ordinary Time that is a part of the liturgical church calendar - that time between Christmas and Lent and between Pentecost and Advent. On the other hand, the book simply refers to finding God (and hope, and wonder, and suffering, and joy) in ordinary things, people, events and days as we go about our lives.
"Finding God in Ordinary Time" is structured around four parts, each with seven meditations:
* Awake to See - On the natural world
* Messengers of Grace - On the people we encounter
* Far from Home - Borne out of Eberle's travels to Latin America, Ireland and beyond
* Working It Out - On questions of suffering, grief, and paying attention to the questions that arise
The book's sub-title is simply "Daily Meditations," but I could not put this book down. I will no doubt go back and re-read it in a "daily" manner, but the first time through I savored it as if one leisurely, lovely meal with a wise and winsome fellow pilgrim.
The book begins (Pedro Arupe) and ends (Mary Oliver) with beautiful poems. But Eberle's prose throughout the pages between the poetry sang even more exquisitely for this reader. I came away encouraged. I came away committed to paying even more attention to the Ordinary Time (and ordinary time) in my own life.
I came away wanting to tell others about this book!
December 14, 2023
Christine Eberle writes from a position of wisdom and experience. Her stories and thoughts really made me think about my relationship with God. This is well worth listening to.
September 15, 2018
Eureka! How many of us yearn for devotional reading that meets our own experience while expressing a voice all its own? That lifts us up in spirit while acknowledging the messiness of life? That delights our sensibilities with a well told encounter, mined as a touchstone for our prayer?
And rarely find it, in spite of the spate of publications and blogs?
I discovered such a treasure, and I wholeheartedly share the good news. Finding God in Ordinary Time, a small book of 28 three-page reflections, sparkles page by page:
https://christine-marie-eberle.com/book/
Christine Eberle weaves theology and Scripture into her experiences in such an intimate, fresh, relatable style that I feel as though I’m sipping coffee on a patio with her, engaging in a fluid conversation marked by spiritual wisdom. In essence I’m sipping a tonic for the soul.
Thank God, literally, that we experience moments of truly indescribable awe. Yet, as Christine observes, our days are lived preponderantly in ordinary time. In her signature style, out of her penetrating awareness and reflection, she serves up captivating firsthand vignettes from her roles as campus minister, chaplain, aunt, girlfriend, liturgist, traveler. Each vignette is followed by a question for reflection, an invitation to mine our own parallel experiences to uncover the extraordinary grace of God that suffuses our ordinary days.
With no hype intended—only the truth of the impact of the book on my awareness and my soul—I am looking for a sixth star in the ratings scale.
Blessed by this book, I’m reminded of the motto and mandate of the Dominican Order: Share the fruits of your contemplation. Thank you, Christine, for sharing the choicest of fruits from the orchards you’ve journeyed among—no ordinary offering.
And rarely find it, in spite of the spate of publications and blogs?
I discovered such a treasure, and I wholeheartedly share the good news. Finding God in Ordinary Time, a small book of 28 three-page reflections, sparkles page by page:
https://christine-marie-eberle.com/book/
Christine Eberle weaves theology and Scripture into her experiences in such an intimate, fresh, relatable style that I feel as though I’m sipping coffee on a patio with her, engaging in a fluid conversation marked by spiritual wisdom. In essence I’m sipping a tonic for the soul.
Thank God, literally, that we experience moments of truly indescribable awe. Yet, as Christine observes, our days are lived preponderantly in ordinary time. In her signature style, out of her penetrating awareness and reflection, she serves up captivating firsthand vignettes from her roles as campus minister, chaplain, aunt, girlfriend, liturgist, traveler. Each vignette is followed by a question for reflection, an invitation to mine our own parallel experiences to uncover the extraordinary grace of God that suffuses our ordinary days.
With no hype intended—only the truth of the impact of the book on my awareness and my soul—I am looking for a sixth star in the ratings scale.
Blessed by this book, I’m reminded of the motto and mandate of the Dominican Order: Share the fruits of your contemplation. Thank you, Christine, for sharing the choicest of fruits from the orchards you’ve journeyed among—no ordinary offering.
April 27, 2019
Christine Eberle has a true gift for taking the "ordinariness" of every day, and illumining the profound and beautiful. Her stories remind us that interacting with God doesn't have to be big and showy, that if we are present to what He offers in each moment, we will find it. I gave copies of this book to several friends for Christmas; it'd also make a great Mother's Day, Father's Day, birthday, or other gift. It celebrates the ordinariness in each of us... and the potential for an extraordinary relationship with the Lord.
June 4, 2021
I read this book after listening to the author speak on a retreat. Her "ordinary times" are the real events of everyday life. This book was great as a read-through and probably even better as a daily inspiration for meditation.
January 29, 2024
A lovely collection of reflections for “ordinary time” (which is a specific season in the Catholic Church). I love the authors stories, and simple ways to connect every day experiences to the sacred.
June 21, 2022
Truly, a treasure!
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews