I’ve been thinking a lot about the chaos in the world, how it was building up and then Covid-19 came and upended anything left that felt remotely “normal.”
There is greater awareness now of what our public officials are doing, of climate change, of systemic racism, of the dark parts of our country’s history, of the inequality between sexes at home and in the workplace….
All of this was known by some but Covid has seemingly flung open pandora’s box and let out all that we were trying to escape and ignore and push through.
I’ve been studying about when Christ was on the earth and His repeated remarks about a new way of living. He kept telling the people that the Law of Moses was no longer necessary. This measured, calculated way of living that was SO normal wasn’t living in His fullness. He had a better way, a way that cast off what was normal and stretched people to look inward, to change their hearts.
He flung open the box and pointed out the inequality, oppression, and pain that existed all around with people ignoring it or just simply trying to push through it because there seemed to be no solution.
Christ came to teach us a new way, to shake off the old traditions of normal and adopt a life centered on love and outreach and growth. There are no steps to count, no boxes to check, just a continual self-reflection to refocus on living in His love and generosity and extending that out to others.
To see the pain and the heartache. To see the oppression and inequality. To dispose of what was normal and adopt a new way of living.
I think American particularly has struggled in this pandemic in casting off our need for what was normal. We have tossed aside the opinions of scientist and doctors in favor of opinions that fulfill our deep desire to “get back to normal.” But the reality is that Covid-19 is real and over 200,000 people have died. Real people. Grandparents, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, children, friends….
Their lives will NEVER go back to normal. They have been cast into an alternate reality where a person they love no longer exists beside them to enjoy sunsets and fall leaves and the deep joy that can be found in the simplest of things.
I fear that our desire for “normal” has pushed us to ignore the pain and heartache, to reject a new way of seeing the world in hopes to hold onto whatever we can from “before.”
But as a Christian I have learned that being reborn in Christ is a continual process. A process where in all the chaos we can turn to Him to center, refocus and see with His eyes.
I have been cast into that alternate reality of loss. Losing James forced me into living a life that was quite different from the one I had thought would come to fruition. It shook me in deep ways and caused me to reflect on what really mattered.
At the core, it forced me to notice that I was not the only one mourning. The whole world around me was mourning in unique ways and I decided I would always do my best to hear their cries, to read and listen to their stories, to look past my own life experience and attempt to walk in their shoes. It was an entirely new way of living for me but one I knew that I could never cast off. Once your body wails and shakes at noon, seemingly surrounded by darkness though the sun shines brightly outside…you are physically changed.
You don’t have to experience loss to live a new way and you don’t have to abandon your personal needs. Living a new way requires pausing and reflecting, reading and praying for your heart to be open, to understand, to see. This is a new way in which we listen to stories of discrimination and oppression and instead of pushing it aside, reflect inward and ask how can I let this change me? A way of life in which we live deliberately, intentionally, imperfectly all with the faith that He will help us. Christ in His infinite love and goodness will guide our spirits, our hearts, our very beings to stretch and be sanctified.
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