Retablo of the Ordinary Mind and the Miracle of Its Exact Size

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Painted on a thin square of tin, nailed slightly crooked because perfection would be suspicious, the scene shows nothing special at first. A kitchen table. A bus stop. A pair of shoes drying by a door. The clock says a time no one remembers choosing.

At the center sits the ordinary mind, not crowned, not illuminated, just doing what it does best—sorting spoons from forks, remembering a name too late, counting steps without counting. It does not announce itself. It hums.

Around it spreads the miracle, though it refuses spectacle. The miracle is scale.

Each mundane thing—receipt paper, dust motes, grocery lists, the way a floorboard sighs—extends outward like a quiet universe. Not exploding. Expanding politely. A myriad of almost-infinite smallnesses, each insisting on being exactly itself.

The mind meets them without drama. It does not master them. It hosts them.

A coffee stain becomes a map. A missed call becomes a narrative with footnotes. The weight of keys in a pocket contains metallurgy, geography, labor, and the memory of doors that once opened. None of this is declared. It is simply held.

At the upper edge of the retablo, there are no angels. Only weather moving through a window. Light changes its mind on the wall. The mind notices this without congratulating itself.

The miracle is not that the ordinary mind expands forever.
The miracle is that it knows precisely how far it goes.

It reaches the limit of a single breath.
The limit of attention before it wanders.
The limit where a thought becomes a feeling and refuses to translate.

And still, within those limits, the entire day fits.

This retablo is offered for the moment when you realize that nothing needs to be added—only noticed—and that the infinite, when encountered daily, prefers to arrive disguised as errands.