The everydayness of everyday

Roger frequently referred to “the everydayness of everyday.”  
An odd expression. 
I’ve worked in several church settings, but Roger had the kindest, most accepting spirit of any minister I’ve worked with on a day to day basis.  We were in a small town in the Georgia mountains, and I thought of Roger as the pastor of the whole town. 
He felt the pulse of daily life -- that “the everydayness of everyday" -- across denominational lines.  As he and I walked down the hill from the church to the small business district, people along the way would greet him as they would their neighbor.  As we sat on stools in a small cafe drinking coffee, everybody seemed to know Roger.  
“What was the doctor’s report on your mother, Sara?” he asked the chair of the altar guild at St. Matthias’ as she and a friend walked by us.  Sara said, “We’re waiting for the biopsy report, Roger.” It wasn’t “Reverend” or “Preacher.” It was “Roger,” from a communicant in the high church Episcopal congregation in response to our low church Baptist preacher.   
As we made our way back up the hill to the church, burly, sandy-hair Bill Compton hollered, “Hey, Roger!” As he trotted to catch us, we stopped and waited.  He panted as he pulled a wadded handkerchief from his hip pocket to mop his brow.  
“How’s it going, Bill?” Roger asked this lay leader from Confidence United Methodist out in the country.   
“Jacky got clobbered in scrimmage yesterday.”
“What happened?”
Bill sputtered, “That overstuffed Gatlin kid knocked ‘im flat and then fell on ‘im.  Probably on purpose.  That boy must weigh four hun’erd pounds. Jacky’s got some busted ribs.  Maybe even a ruptured spleen.  Reckin you c’n git by to see him at the hospital?”
Cancer scare.  Injury for a star quarterback.  All this and more was part of “the everydayness of everyday” in our town.
We’d rather not think of these traumas as part of daily life.  We prefer the old Irving Berlin outlook: “Nothing but blue skies from now on.”  But I’m reminded of a painting in the basement shop in St. Martin in the Fields Church in London.  The artist depicted people in a rainstorm, some with umbrellas, others with no protection from the elements.  In the title, “With Sunny Spells Later,” I think the artist was telling us to expect stormy times in life, with occasional bursts of sunshine.
I recall a daily cartoon strip featuring a man named Ebenezer and his wife Florence.  But they were known simply as Eb and Flo, suggesting the Ebb and Flow of life routines, perhaps “the everydayness of everyday.”
Like the two-faced god Janus, whose name is embedded in the first month of the year, the start of each new year -- and the start of each new day in the new year -- provides opportunity to look back to evaluate and look forward to anticipate the colossal, the common, or the catastrophe, all part of “the 
everydayness of everyday.”

Psalm 90:12---So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.