My good friend Rev. Megan Collins, one of the co-pastors at Maitland Presbyterian Church in Florida, posted this on Facebook last week:
The phrase I keep hearing this week is “we just need to get back to normal.”
I understand. I long for normal too.
But nothing about this year will be normal.
Whether you send your kids back to school in person or keep them home.
Whether you are working in an office or working remote.
Whether you take a vacation or don’t leave your backyard.
So what if (and hear me out) we stop chasing normal?
Every time we chase after normal, we grieve all over again.
We grieve the things we have lost, the expectations we had for when this would all be over, the things we know our kids and families won’t be able to do. When we try and make this time normal, we are disappointed.
Because none of this is normal. You can’t do normal in a pandemic.
What if, instead of chasing normal, we fought for moments that are good?
What if we stopped pretending we can do all the things we used to do and instead dug deep and found new ways to do this together?
I am done looking for normal.
I’m going to fight for things this year that are good.
We can’t do all the things we used to do or all the things we want to do at the moment and that’s really hard. Acknowledging this is not giving up or giving in—I don’t believe that we will live this way forever and I have hope that things will get better. But in the meantime, I want to fight for things that are good. I want to live in this moment with grace for myself and others as we do things differently because right now we can’t do them the way we used to.
In the midst of all that is so tough about this season, I hope you can notice the good around you and be part of creating good when and where you are able to.
