Finding Sacred in Everyday Life
Everything Is Holy, and Most of It Is a Mystery
Second in a 5-part series
from The Reflective Pen Manifesto
What if we’ve been looking for the sacred in everyday life in all the wrong places?
We’re often taught to expect holiness in stained glass and silence, in sacred texts and formal prayers. And while I’ve found the sacred there, too, most of the time it surprises me somewhere else entirely.
This is the second post in a five-part series drawn from The Reflective Pen Manifesto—a set of beliefs that have shaped how I live, how I write, and how I age with meaning. Today’s belief is this:
Everything is holy and is mystery.
Our spirituality and all that is sacred
exceeds definition and yet is found
in ordinary, everyday events and things.
I have lived a long time. And still, mystery leaves me wide-eyed. I don’t mean the mystery of the cosmos or the afterlife—though those are real too. I mean the smaller ones. The ones we walk past without noticing. The holiness that arrives in a soap bubble or a cricket’s song or the quiet kindness of someone who didn’t have to be kind.
The Trees and the Wind
When I was very young, I asked my father where the wind came from. He was a science teacher, but I imagine he was busy or tired that day. His answer?
“It’s just the trees waving back and forth.”
I must have paused, watching the branches move as if they were in conversation with the sky. I still smile and shake my head over that answer, 75 years later. Because the truth is—I don’t know where the wind comes from. I know the scientific explanation now. But I don’t know.
The wind, for me, remains mystery. And perhaps that’s enough.
Mystery in the Mixing Bowl
For many years I made bread every week. And every time, I would wonder: How does a cold, wet lump of flour and water—so lifeless and heavy—become bread? How do a few grains of yeast change everything?
I’ve done it a hundred times, and still it feels like a kind of sacred chemistry. There’s something holy in that waiting, in the way the dough rises in the dark, quiet and unseen. It’s ordinary. It’s miracle.
Sometimes holiness is what we’re doing with our hands when we’re not even paying attention.
Small Children and Unseen Grace
And speaking of miracles…how do little children survive childhood?
They fall out of trees. They eat bugs. They run with pencils. They tumble down stairs and bounce off couches. They jump from unreasonable heights with absolute faith in gravity’s mercy.
Most of them grow up anyway. How is that possible?
Maybe mystery doesn’t always come in the shape of answers. Maybe it’s just the wide-open wonder of not knowing—and learning to trust what’s holding it all together.
The Sacredness of the Seemingly Small
A candle flame.
A bar of soap turning to bubbles in a child’s hands.
The way crickets sing at night like they have something urgent to say.
These are not grand spiritual events. But they are holy, in the way that quiet things often are.
This is the sacred in everyday life, I believe, isn’t about drama. It’s about presence. It’s about noticing.
Years ago, I might have tried to define what is holy. I might have reached for the right words to explain divinity or spirituality.
But these days, I’m more comfortable with not knowing. With letting mystery be mystery.
Spirituality that fits neatly into a box is often too small for the world we live in.
Letting Go of the Need to Define
I no longer feel the need to name the sacred with precision. My understanding of divinity has stretched over time.
It’s larger now, softer at the edges. Less about answers and more about being present. It doesn’t live in certainty. It lives in openness.
You may call it God. You may call it Spirit, or Love, or simply wonder.
You may not call it anything at all.
Still, it moves. It pulses through everyday things. This is why I no longer try to define spirituality too tightly—it’s about noticing the sacred in everyday life. It lifts the dough. It whispers in the wind. It holds the hands of children and steadies them, even when we cannot see it.
That’s enough for me.
We Are Surrounded by Everyday Sacraments
There are so many small rituals we perform without realizing they are sacred:
- Lighting a candle before dinner
- Holding a warm mug between our palms
- Smoothing the covers on a sickbed
- Listening to someone talk, even when we have no answer
These everyday sacraments remind us that the sacred in everyday life doesn’t depend on rituals alone. Not always named. Not always seen. But they change us.
They invite us to show up—not just physically, but spiritually. To meet the ordinary with reverence.
Living with Mystery (and Not Needing It to Make Sense)
Some people feel unsettled when they don’t have all the answers. When prayers go unanswered or theology doesn’t explain what just happened.
I understand that.
But I’ve come to believe that mystery isn’t failure. It’s invitation.
Not knowing doesn’t mean we’re lost. Sometimes it means we’re listening.
The sacred often arrives without explanation. And if we wait until we understand it fully, we might miss it entirely.
Seeing Differently Helps Us Notice the Sacred in Everyday Life
To live this way is to see differently.
To find holiness not just in mountaintops and cathedrals, but in dishwater and laundry piles and sidewalk cracks. To find it in the curve of a sleeping dog, or the silence between two people who understand each other without words.
Try this, if you like: At the end of the day, name three things you saw or touched that felt—just maybe—a little bit holy. A little bit mysterious. A little bit more than they seemed. That’s how we learn to see the sacred in everyday life.
You may be surprised what rises to the surface.
This is the second belief in The Reflective Pen Manifesto. I’ll be sharing the next three over the coming weeks. Each is a thread in the larger fabric of how we live, age, notice, and tell the truth.
Until then, I invite you to carry this question into your day:
What if everything really is holy—and most of it is mystery?
You don’t need to understand it. Just keep your eyes open.
The sacred tends to show up… when you do.
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