Photo by Andrew Winkler on Upsplash
By my count, we’ve now accumulated more the fifty days in our current lockdown mode. I’m sure I could easily cite fifty reasons I wish it were over already.
In the forefront lies the recognition that, as someone very cleverly put it, “We’re not all in the same boat; we’re all in the same storm.” We are not suffering equally, and it’s frustrating to feel the limitations of what I can do to be helpful in the face of the hardship some are enduring.
People more in my situation where the virus remains an inconvenience but not really a threat, might compare this time to Israel’s sojourn in the wilderness with Moses. For the Israelites, the exodus into the desert marked an abrupt change from their lives of slavery in Egypt and came with many of them wondering if the life they left behind wasn’t, in fact, better than the uncertainty of what Moses offered. Who among us hasn’t spent much time bemoaning the loss of the life we considered “normal”? Granted, unlike the Israelites, our normal seemed pretty good. Yet, I never really valued it while I had it the way I appreciate it now in retrospect.
I said when I first started writing during the pandemic, that I expected this would be a time for God to teach me. Perhaps this is the first lesson: to recognize the value of an interconnected world which I had simply taken for granted.
The next lesson is even harder: there will be no going back to the same normal.
God willing, much of what was good about our lives – particularly the high rate of employment, our ability to meet in groups for church, sports, concerts, graduations, weddings, as well as the marvel of global interaction – will return. But let’s remember that it wasn’t perfect. We’ve been horrifically polarized in our politics and haven’t made much progress on a long list of societal problems that this pandemic has certainly highlighted. While I have no idea what the new normal will look like, I hope that somehow this in-between time can help us to reflect and focus on what needs to change. We can’t “change the world” directly, but Christianity preaches that God transforms the world one person at a time. Clearly, the only place where you or I can operate is in ourselves.
To that end, we have to be wary of our tendency to settle for “good enough.” I’m not saying the concept has no place – I wouldn’t be able to write if I thought my product had to be perfect before I could publish. But God always wants more for us. As Jesus reminds us, God doesn’t just want us to have life, but to have it abundantly (John 10:10).
An image from CS Lewis’ Mere Christianity comes to my mind here. When we ask God to come into our lives to make us better, Lewis suggests we think of ourselves as a modest cottage that could use some new wiring and a couple coats of paint. But God has plans far greater and wants to renovate our “cottage” into a beautiful mansion.
None of us knows how many days of shuttering lie ahead – hopefully, less than we’ve already put in. Already, I pray that in the future I’ll be adequately grateful when the good features of our interconnected lives return. But there are more lessons to be had than this. I want to spend this remaining time figuring out what God is trying to show me in my life that needs to change. It will be a joyous day when I can safely embrace my friends and family again, but I want to be up to the challenge of discovering a better normal as well.
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