Return to "Normal" - Should We?

That is the increasing cry these days as we move daily further and longer into this pandemic.
"Let's return to normal."
"How much longer?"
"Why can't we just get back to . . . "
Return to normal!
Is that what we really want?
Is that what we really should want?
After all of what has unfolded in the past weeks and months, do we just want to go back to the way we were before it all?
Should we want to just go back?
How about going forward?
How about realizing some long held dreams?
How about being bold enough to make long called for, long awaited changes?
How about refusing to simply embrace the old status quo?
Can we actually dare to make changes to the way things were and start to build the way things should be?
As a society, as the Church can we dare to be different? Better?
This pandemic has brought the world to a halt in so very many ways, ways unimagined just weeks or even days before.
What if . . .
What if we prayerfully began to see this as a time of Grace?
When we journey through the Scriptures, we find a people willing to search for the Hand of God or the Message of God in life's occurrences. They also believed that in times of adversity, God had something strong and important to reveal to them.
They were not always good about listening or immediately accepting the message but when they finally did, they found themselves enriched.
What if we gave that a try?
What if we used some of this down time to search for God's Wisdom as it may be being revealed and discovered in our present circumstances.
The world has virtually come to a standstill.
Life as we knew it is at a standstill.
Virtually everything - yes, everything - that we held as value has suddenly been called into question.
We have an historic opportunity to rethink, reevaluate, reexamine everything.
We do not need to get back to the way things were.
We can move forward rather than backward.
But we need to pay attention, to listen, to see this as a time of Grace, of God.
What, truly, is important?
What, really, matters?
What should we let go of and what should we cling most vigorously to?
And here is the true bottom line.
What would God like to see from us as we reopen?
What is God's desire?
Get that. Not our desire but rather God's.
And if we are to enter into that question, we must recognize our need to pray - really pray and not just utter some words.
Looking back at our yesterdays, it seems to me that we can find a whole lot of what we wanted.
And that meant a whole little of what God just might have wanted.
In our process of reopening of our, or wait - should that not be God's - world, what should stay and what should go. What belongs and what really does not fit.
What must we do to make things better and what must we rid ourselves of?
And as we dare these thoughts, we need to make ourselves bold and daring.
God is no coward.
And God never settles for the status quo.
God's Spirit is fire and whirlwind.
Young dreaming dreams and old having visions.
And that Peter who said, "I do not even know Him," standing on that portico before the multitude declaring, "You do not know Him -- but you need to!"
Visions and dreams.
Of a nation truly committed to the ideals of our founders.
Of a world truly committed to becoming one world.
Of a Church truly committed to embodying His Way.
Of families truly embracing one another.
Of each of us truly accepting the freedom to be responsible for. . .
Catherine of Siena, that great Doctor of our Church, so many centuries ago so boldly challenged her time with words that can challenge us still.
That Dominican Preacher declared, " Do not be satisfied with little things, because God wants great things!"
Back to normal, to the way things were.
Please God, stop us from doing that!
Help us to be better than that!


For now, please Stay Home and Stay Safe!