A new normal

 

1 Corinthians 13:13

And now three things remain: faith, hope, and love;  and the greatest of these is love.

What if there is no new normal?

What if this is it?

A constant surge here and twist there

What if we cannot find a new routine?

And all the stages of grief continue to assail us

from moment to moment?

How then shall we be pilgrims without way-markers?

There is an echo of something familiar

In constantly moving on, learning as we go

In adopting new ways, temporary rituals

The difficulty is that we like to nail things down

We like our establishment

We like to write tradition on tablets of stone

We like to frame our practices about with solid pillars

even if it makes their toppling all the more grievous 

The lightness of following

a whimsical God

who playfully calls us

to become like children

open to adventure

seeing every new day

as an opportunity

and being grateful for its potential

for the potential of learning new things

for the potential of discovering new wonders

for the potential of each day becoming “the best day”

What if we relearned

that our productivity is not the measure

by which we are judged

Nor our steadiness

or predictability

But, rather, creativity, gentleness, kindness, hope

become signs of health and wealth

And, our sharing of those gifts with those who struggle

bearing one another up on the days when we own our abundance

And being borne up on those days when we need the strength of others

Taking what we need, giving what we can

Co-creating temporary new normals together

and holding lightly to that which we may need to discard

when another new normal comes along

Called by God

to keep on moving

transformed and transforming

by faith

by hope

and by love.