I have avoided writing about this. It has interfered with everyday life for almost two years. People are asking as I do, when will we get back to normal? Maybe that is the problem. Maybe we deceive ourselves by seeking something called “normal”? My aunt has a sign in her kitchen that says, “as far as anyone knows, our family is normal”. I have the same sign in my kitchen.
That little sign is a reminder. It reminds me that being normal is an illusion. No one is normal, they simply are who they are. It is like being “average”. That is a representative statistic and as a way of being it does not exist. So maybe we should stop saying “let’s just get back to normal”. Maybe if we just let go of normal and average we could be real people, we could love ourselves as is, we could love others as they are.
When this whole pandemic thing started, I said that society would change and the church would change. First of all, we would stop taking things for granted that they will be the same each day. People began to take civil rights more seriously, that is a plus. Churches had to examine why they exist and how to meet the needs of people who need emotional and spiritual support. I still believe that the emergent church can use this time to become more personal and real. Congregations of 10,000 people are no longer viable. Maybe they never were. And maybe, the needs of others are more obvious to us now. Maybe people cannot control being poor, unemployed, homeless, or sick.
Jesus had it right. We need to live in the moment, to see all that God is doing in that moment, and take a bit more time to savor life. Most of all to be ourselves, whoever that is on any given day. As Oscar Wilde said, “Be yourself, all of the others are taken”.
TMM