More about the treasure of the ordinary

Every morning I sit at my window overlooking Queen Street. I sit there from just after 7 until 9 and I read and I pray. 

Just outside my window, across the street is a streetcar stop. Each morning there is a steady stream of mostly youngish or middle-agish folks heading, I suppose, to work. They come in all sizes and shapes and colours reflecting this city's amazing tapestry. They come in all manner of clothing from elegant to extremely comfortable. And each day it is pretty much the same people at more or less the same time who stand there and wait with all the others. They read their newspapers, or talk on their phones or just stand there looking down the road to see if the streetcar is in sight.

Also on the street are the people who are just passing by: the older folk who are, like me, presumably no longer working. I suspect that some of them are on their way to Starbucks for their morning coffee and maybe for a chat with someone like them. There are also, in the winter especially, the children with their mums or dads and often, the family dog on their way to school (the children not the dog!). It really is a stream of humanity doing much the same thing each day and yet...

What strikes me a lot is that each of these people, though part of a stream if you will, or a crowd, is nevertheless, entirely unique, entirely unlike anyone else. Ordinary people doing ordinary things yet each is unique and, in my opinion, precious. And no doubt 50 years ago their grandparents or parents did exactly the same thing and 50 years from now, their children or grandchildren will be there, still waiting for the streetcar.

As I sit there, I pray for them and for the people at all the other streetcar stops and bus stops in this and every other city for generation after generation. And I wonder, because time is leading us all in the same direction from birth, through to death with all the streetcar stops in between, does each one ever reflect on the meaning of it all? Do you?