Going to the grocery store looking like you’re about to rob the place or give someone an enema is the new normal.
If you had told me two months ago that my family and I would be doing that and washing all of our food and packages before we put them away and sanitizing our dog’s feet after she goes for a walk and other queer things to stay safe, sanitized, I would have called you nuts.
Yet, here we are…doing those things.
You’re probably experiencing the same thing.
You’re doing things you’ve never done. You’re washing your hands like crazy, for longer than you ever imagined that you ever could or should. But there you are, cleaning every little crevice and pore on your cracking mitts about twenty times a day, trying to lather on the lotion so they don’t crack apart as you desperately try to stay sanitary.
And it’s all amazing, isn’t it? I marvel.
Not at all of the things that we must do. No. It’s still a little weird to me when I really pause to think about all of it.
What amazes me is the human capacity to adjust.
We can change a fair amount fairly quickly and get used to a new normal. We can take the strangest, even harshest environments, and adapt.
We can suffer and find a way to survive. Even thrive.
Throw us in a desert and we will find a way to plant a garden. Put us on an island and we will find a way to make a raft. Quarantine us and we will find a way to create deeper connections with those whom we love.
Is it the human spirit? Maybe.
But I believe it’s more than that. It’s Divine grace that fuels us, even in the midst of pain, especially so.
This holiday season is all about a New Normal.
It’s about a cosmic one where death dies and life lives eternally. Where our bodies don’t decay and spring is the only season. Life lives forever without pain, suffering, loneliness, hunger, uncertainty. And peace, joy, health, wellness, feasting is the norm.
It’s there. Take it.
Believe.
John Pa 