The New Normal
These days we hear the words “New Normal” being uttered frequently.
And yearnings to “return to normal,” as if there ever was such a thing. And if
we are honest, we don’t like change. And especially we don’t like it if we have
to change. Yet, as I ponder the New Normal and Back to Normal, and the stories
of our faith, I’m forced to come to the realization that New Normal is pretty
much what God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Bible are all about!
Take Abraham and Sarah. There they were happy back home in
Ur of the Chaldees when God says to pack up, take off and keep going until I
say stop. Which they actually do! And that’s not all. On the way they find out
Sarah, “and she as good as dead” as Hebrews puts it, learns she is to have a
son! And she does. Isaac! Whom Abraham is then ordered to sacrifice, but at the
last minute a reprieve is issued! That’s a lot of New Normal for one household.
Then there is David, the youngest of the sons of Jesse in
Bethlehem, a shepherd boy who is suddenly chosen by God to become a servant to
Saul, the king of Israel; then armor bearer; then sent out to slay Goliath;
becomes commander of the armies of Israel; finally, upon Soul’s death on the
battlefield, he becomes king of Israel! Talk about a series of New Normals!
Then there is Mary. A young teenage girl who somehow becomes
betrothed to an older man, Joseph, a local carpenter and a descendant from the
House of David. She is minding her own business when an Angel appears and
declares that even though she is yet to be married she will bear a child and
name him Jesus! Talk about a new normal! She is not sure what to make of it
all, but Gabriel the Angel assures her not to be afraid, “For nothing will be
impossible with God.” Mary replies, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it
be with me according to your word.” Suddenly, she is now a servant to God’s
will, and the mother of God – Theotokos! That’s a New Normal if there ever
was one!
Abraham, Sarah, David and Mary all find out that it is true:
nothing is impossible with God. All of them, like all of us, are recipients of
God’s grace, God’s charis. It’s pure gift. They don’t earn it, they
don’t deserve God’s grace, or God’s favor – it is given. All of us at some time
or other receive a measure of God’s grace as pure gift – not for anything we
have done or deserve, but because God wants us to enter into a New Normal.
God’s New Normal!
So, imagine my surprise, after adjusting to wearing a mask
every day; getting tested from time to time; reimagining worship that can be
done online, live streamed; having not hugged any of our children or little Mo,
our grandchild for months; discovering that worship online has become a
life-saving and live-changing grace; trying to come up with something to say
for Advent 4 when suddenly, like David and Mary and Abraham and Sarah, I get one
gift of grace by email, and another via Face Book Messenger! Grace abounds!
The first is from my mentor, colleague, friend and occasional
ghost writer, Christina “Christy” Garvan from St. Timothy’s School for Girls; some
reflections on our shared Covid New Normal, called: No Norman in New Normal
“This Season has got to be its own. Two pristine Advent
calendars are plunked in the living
room. The calendars depict versions of old-fashioned country
and town Christmas scenes. My
sister recently sent this year’s Norman Rockwell one. The
painting on it is quaint, snowy, busy,
and not one iota like 2020. I have been assiduously avoiding
the wee doors. I do not want to
see what treasures lie in wait. Maybe we have to open some
other doors and see what 2020
demands. Rockwell’s “Winter of our Content” can stay in
lockdown.
“2020 holidays are bringing challenges. Let us lean into
them and find ways to celebrate.
Holidays always move us from seeing as a child to seeing as
an adult and they mercilessly
demand growing up. Usually, we have some time and can move
with baby steps. 2020 is a
brutal mistress in life’s game of Mother- May- I. The year is
in charge of everything and is
commanding us, the confused players to say “yes, I will” to
some giant steps. So here we go
“Mother May I celebrate in this
bleak winter?”
“Yes, you may, but only if you put
Norman Rockwell away.”
“For many cards, decorations, gifts, food and music fill the
holidays. They each scream to be
amended in 2020. Cards recounting the adventures and
successes of children and
grandchildren need to give way to simple expressions of
love, interest, forgiving and genuine
care for the recipient. It’s hard to know what suffering is
at the other side of an exchange but
compassion and reaching out can be a light for someone. Less
is more. A handwritten, “I miss
you” or “I am sorry” or “I have been thinking of you” might
just help someone suffering with the
isolation and loss these months have wrought.
“Decorations delight in two ways. The one who puts them up
enjoys the splendor and others
can smile and rejoice as they “spectate.” 2020 means we have
to watch from a distance and not
swarm the favored glittering wonders. Let’s appreciate every
candle and light as free gifts to
show hope in a dark winter. It’s fine to drive by and cheer
on the magnificent and the small
without comparing, evaluating and demeaning. Each decorator
has offered a bright spot. We
can quietly, masked and at a distance, appreciate these
beacons.
“Gifts have already emerged into the new universe run by
Covid-19. Our Governor and County
Executives have bid us to patronize small, local businesses.
Also, The Sun has run stories about
charities and how they are managing without their in-person
events. The Sun has never
avoided the accounts of suffering throughout the world.
Giving locally and globally uses
resources to beget resources. Let’s give gently and let our
gifts benefit the ones struggling and
the recipients all at once.
“Preparing, sharing and eating special foods has since time
immemorial been how we recognize
the gift of life. The frightful curtain of the virus has
forced this precious daily ritual to be
examined anew. During lockdowns many took on bread making.
Schools opened to provide
breakfast and lunch. Many carried boxes of groceries to the
doors of elders who waved
gratefully from their windows. Like the Drop-off-courses and
ZOOM Thanksgivings did,
December’s feasts too can make inventive journeys through
the woods to metaphorical
Grandmother’s house. We can all eat and share our sour dough
bread. Many are hungry and
they sit at our table in 2020.
“The pandemic has cutoff many public performances of music.
Yet music itself can ring loudly
and proudly to every ear in this bitter winter. Radio
concerts and programs stay strong for all.
Whether it is an Anglican boys’ choir or “Jingle Bell Rock”
the Corona Grinch cannot stop the
magic. So, sing, dance, go wild while always socially
distancing yourself from infecting others.
Music has a fast track straight to the soul. At holidays the
notes reach us at a different place
each year. We sing and smile and we sing and weep for the
ones who sang with us before and
now are gone. In this Season of the Pandemic our singing is
no different from all those of our
past. We sing for joy. We sing for lost youth. We sing
because we must. We sing so our
neighbor can smile. We sing to thank our god for life and to
grieve for its loss.”
By Christy Garvan, Towson,
Maryland
Then, I’ve been reading "Ring Out, Wild Bells," a
poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Published in 1850, the year he was appointed
Poet Laureate of England. It forms part of In Memoriam, Tennyson's elegy
to Arthur Henry Hallam, his sister's fiancé who died at the age of twenty-two. It
is a poem of grief, hope, desire, love and faith all rolled into one. It seems
to speak to the emotional Covid roller coaster in deep and mysterious ways, while
it seeks the coming of yet another New Normal. Out of the blue, another friend,
mentor, colleague, and multi-instrumentalist, Jared Denhard, links me up to a
Canadian folk singer-songwriter, Alana Levandoski, who has put Tennyson to music
so we can sing! We sing for joy. We sing for lost youth. We sing because we
must. We sing so our neighbor can smile. We sing to thank our God for life and
to grieve for its loss.
Ring out, wild
bells from In Memoriam
Alfred, Lord
Tennyson / Arranged: Alana Levandoski
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud,
the frosty light:
The year is dying
in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy
bells, across the snow:
The year is
going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind
For those that here
we see no more;
Ring out the feud
of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms
of party strife;
Ring in the nobler
modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander
and the spite;
Ring in the love of
truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the
narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the
thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart,
the kindlier hand;
Ring out the
darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
Despite our reluctance and resistance to change, after all
is said and done, Advent is meant to remind us that God always has a New Normal
in store for us, if only we will allow ourselves to step beyond the comfort of
where we are into the New Normal God’s Dream for this world of ours – just as
our forbearers in faith, Abraham, Sarah, David and Mary miraculously do. What
Soren Kierkegaard called a “leap of faith.” The New Normal is not always easy,
as Mary is to find out in Holy week. But it is always surprising and brings us
closer to the God who loves us and cares for us and wants to be part of who we
are and who we are becoming. For out of Good Friday comes Resurrection. Talk
about a New Normal! Like Mary, we need not be afraid. For nothing will be
impossible for God! Bring it on! Ring out, wild bells! Ring out the darkness of
the land! Ring in the Christ that is to be!
Amen. It is truth. It is so.
https://youtu.be/dbnsIydaYYg
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