David and I were at Nordstrom Rack the other day, deep in a familiar ritual: scan the racks for a discounted deal, strike out, wander over to shoes.

(A perk of being married to a man who wears the same shoe size as me is that I’ve doubled my shoe collection over the years.)

I’d found a cute pair of chocolate brown sandals and turned to show David when I noticed a Buddhist monk in saffron robes.

He was standing a few feet away, comparing two different boxes of Calvin Klein underwear.

Startled, I tried not to stare but couldn’t help it. It felt like a collision of two worlds that had no business being together, like a flamingo driving an Uber.

To me, shopping for clothing is something I do to take a break from spirituality. And yet, aside from the saffron robes, there was nothing remarkable about what he was doing.

No chanting, no meditating. Just a guy shopping for boxer briefs.

David caught my gaze and turned around just in time to see a second monk wander by us. I’m assuming they were together, though I suppose it’s possible two identically dressed monks ended up at the same discount store by coincidence.

David looked at me, eyebrows raised and communicating without speaking: this isn’t something you see everyday!

We bought our sandals and left. I couldn’t shake the image of them the whole ride home. As a color intuitive, saffron robes have always given me a sense of peace, but somehow that feeling and “good deal at Nordstrom Rack” had never occupied the same thought before.

Early in my spiritual journey, I thought connection was supposed to look a specific way.

I imagined meditating on a mountaintop, finding nirvana in a sweat lodge, or receiving divine insights from the sky on a starry night.

What I keep relearning, is that a spiritual experience can often look like nothing at all. We can have a profound moment while paying taxes, taking out the trash, or even while shopping.

Our brains love a good fairy tale. We want the epiphany, the sign, the moment that feels like the universe reached down and tapped us on the shoulder.

So when life hands us a to-do list, laundry, or standing in line at the store, we assume that there’s no room for higher consciousness in these moments.

But maybe the path of spirituality was never supposed to sparkle the whole way?

Maybe the sparkle is the highlight reel of life, not the whole story. If the mundane is where we actually live most of our lives, the real practice is finding that same sense of peace wherever we are.

Even monks, it turns out, have to shop for underwear.

I’d love to know: what small moments bring you a sense of spirituality? Let me know in the comments below!

Much Love,