In Door County, Wisconsin, nestled within Sister Bay and overlooking a smaller section of Lake Michigan sits a popular Swedish restaurant. Tourists flock to the place, and why? Because atop that Swedish restaurant and nestled in rooftop grass sit a popular tourist sight: Goats.
Goats roam the angular roofs doing basic goat stuff. That is to say, there are goats on the roof eating grass, and — consequently — there are people gathered all around the property, necks craned, eyes shielded against the sun, fingers pointed upward, taking photos of those goats just living their goat lives.
It’s an absolute delight.
I don’t know about you, but I’m not what one might call an avid goat watcher. I don’t usually clamor to stand in the outdoor seating area of a restaurant I’m not actually patronizing simply to stare at the roof. I don’t usually rush across a busy street clutching my children’s hands in order to ogle what is one of the standard offerings at most petting zoos. And I’m at best reticent to stand in the summer heat any longer than necessary, let alone while rubbing elbows with other not-quite-avid goat watchers.
But I did all those things this past weekend. More than once. Me and like every other person there. And why? C’mon — there were goats on the roof!
The great Indian Jesuit priest Anthony de Mello wrote in his classic text, “Awareness,” how easily we dismiss the things we think we already know, we’ve already seen. For a child, everything is new; everything is wonderful; everything is distinct. But those of us who’ve been around a while readily abstract the specific thing in front of us into a generalized concept.
Consider the sparrow. De Mello writes: “The first time the child sees that fluffy, alive, moving object, and you say to him, ‘Sparrow,’ then tomorrow when the child sees another fluffy, moving object similar to it he says, ‘Oh, sparrows. I’ve seen. Sparrows. I’m bored by sparrows.’” (p 121)
And yet, we know every sparrow is distinct. We know every aspect of creation is unique — and wonderfully made! St. Ignatius of Loyola teaches us that God is present in all things. De Mello is simply reminding us to look at all things. To sink into the awesome reality that is each individual speck of stardust placed here to reveal some unique wonder of God’s own dream.
God doesn’t want us to aggregate and dismiss; God wants us to marvel in the specificity of this and every moment.
It took putting the goats on the roof to get us to really see them. To marvel at them. It took an extraordinary setup for us to delight in an ordinary situation. After all, what were those goats doing? Eating grass.
Ignatian spirituality challenges us to see the extraordinary in the ordinary. We encounter our God of the universe in all things — the simple and the mundane. But it occurs to me that the rituals of our faith, the sacraments through which God so tangibly manifests Godself, insist that we ground ourselves in the ordinary while simultaneously receiving the extraordinary. Bread and wine. Water and oil. Rings and words.
As we prepare to celebrate the Feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola tomorrow, July 31st, as we once again remind ourselves that God is truly present and speaking to us in and through all things, I wonder: Where might an extraordinary moment be pointing us back to God already at work in the quiet places of our days? And where might an ordinary encounter offer us a glimpse of the transcendent?
