A Nothing Like You

To start, I pose this question: do you want to be extraordinary? Insert your own definition — a feat worth loads of admiration, a fancy degree, a feign humble “I’d like to thank God” while accepting a prestigious award. Maybe your definition is broader, simpler. An “A” in Organic Chemistry, winning the affections of that one special someone, making your critical dad proud. In every iteration and in every person, I believe there is an ache to be somebody. A somebody – not just anybody – that leaves a legacy. 

To answer this question for myself, I will tell the story of my mother. When my older sister was a senior in high school, she told my mom, “I don’t want to be a nothing like you when I grow up.” My mother has been a stay-at-home mom for more than 30 years. She would have finished her graduate thesis in film had it not been for a houseful of kids and her project ending up in the garbage. When I was a senior in high school, my mom would suddenly stop what she was doing with a hard look in eyes, sighing, “I could have done so many things.” Every wet towel left on the floor was proof that this was not her dream. My mother is ordinary, in her profession and in her life. 

I know the Christian worldview offers some solace for those who find themselves, well, normal. Jesus calls all who are weary and burdened to come to Him, and he will grant them rest (Matthew 11:28). But truthfully, I have always seen the calling of the Christian life to be extraordinary — to be great, or at least memorable. I am called to go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). Yet, “I am always faced again with the unglamorous reality of my own life: of my ongoing failure simply to love well the people around me, and of my own ever-present struggle even to desire and to pursue a path of righteousness and obedience in my own small daily choices and habits” [1]. I have not done great things for God, and I come from a lineage of normalcy. I have pleaded, tried, prodded, cried, and ached to be extraordinary — all to prove to nobody but myself that the space I take up is important.

But then I look to the women like my mother — the women of Christendom. I look to Saint Therese of Lisieux, a French Carmelite nun who lived a short 24 years of life before dying of tuberculosis. She was known for her “Little Way,” a spirituality that honors little things done in great love [2]. Therese did nothing extraordinary; she says herself “great deeds are forbidden to her”. But she understood that a glance and moment of attention with tender eyes and mercy could change a heart. In A Story of a Soul, she writes, “miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word; always doing the smallest right and doing it all for love” [3]. I see myself in the loving glance of Saint Therese, who tells me, stop looking in the mirror, examining for extraordinary, and look at Jesus. 

The most beautiful and paradoxical aspect about the Christian faith is the life of Jesus Christ, a humble carpenter from Nazareth whose first thirty years are spent silently preparing for a short three years of ministry. You would expect that the world-saving deity would have volumes and volumes recording his every move, but, in his humility, he exists and serves, and that is enough. The Christian life, in its essence, offers more than enough hope for us “normies” who have not done great things. Jesus Christ models for us a life dedicated to others, reconfirming the dignity of each human in his gentle attention. In a world that demands we be everything to everyone lest we be nothing, in Christ, we are somebody. 

To answer my question — do I want to be extraordinary? Desperately. But once again, I look to my mother. My mother has a temper, but she also has a sense of humor. She likes to do things I like to do simply because I like to do them. She will go on long walks with me and tell me of a cute Catholic boy she met because she knows I have a thing for Catholics. She wears a gold necklace everyday engraved with the words Imago Dei, the image of God. This wasn’t her dream, and yet somehow, it was. My sister was in the hospital for three months many years ago and my mom sat with her day after day. When my older sister was healthy again, she told me this story: in those days when my mom held her on her lap, stroking her head, she told my sister, “I wouldn’t change a thing.”

There is an ordinary thread that ties my mother and me together. The things I used to begrudge — our shared cellulite, our tempers, our sensitivity — are things I now tenderly touch with attention. Like Therese of Lisieux, I have come to appreciate the small things done in great love. I see Jesus in everything my mother does; she has not done great things, but she has done the greatest thing, which is to love consistently and sacrificially. When I crave extraordinariness, she is always there, making a safe place for me to fail, to come to terms with my ordinariness, and to find solace in our shared humanity. If being unextraordinary is the thread that ties my mother and me together, I hope I never sever it. But if I do, I know she is there to tie it back together with extraordinary love.

1. McKelvey, Douglas Kaine. Every Moment Holy, Volume 1 (Pocket Edition). Rabbit Room, n.d.
2. Society of the Little Flower. “Who Is St. Therese – Society of the Little Flower – US.” Society of the Little Flower – US, August 17, 2021. https://www.littleflower.org/st-therese/who-is-st-therese/.
3. Thérèse, De Lisieux. The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux the Story of a Soul, 1957. http://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA11231563.