It's Time

 Just read a post of Facebook from someone I know. It said simply, "Taking down the tree" and was followed by one of those emojis depicting a face flooded with tears.

Sad moment.

Almost immediately there came a second post, one from still another whom I have come to know over the years. This one showed a photograph of a fireplace, flames blazing, garland and a Christmas tree festively decked with ornaments and lights. And again the declaration that the time had come to put away Christmas, this one adding that the time had provided a bright spot in an otherwise bleak period in our lives.

Sad moment.

Nevertheless, it is time.

Another Christmas Season has become history and now it is time to enter in earnest into the New Year.

For Catholics we are entering a brief period know to us as Ordinary Time. We will get a hefty dose of this Ordinary Time through summer and autumn. This period which we have now is just a sampling, spanning only five and a half weeks.

For most Christians this period is known at the Time after Epiphany.

All basically the same animal.

The days have begun to grow noticeably longer and we may even be noting the days until that shadowy figure of Punxsutawney Phil puts in his annual appearance.

Somewhere along the way there will still be a Super Bowl although this year with empty seats and also, as is annually predictable, absent the Detroit Lions.

And as mid-January arrives, we are reminded that Valentine's Day is right around the corner and St. Patrick's Day follows closely on its heals.

And I just know that most any day now packages of Peas Egg Coloring and those Peeps will be arriving on store shelves.

It's all part of the predictable of this span of Ordinary Time.

Still, it is time to put away the trappings of Christmas and move into that commonplace of Ordinary Time. It is time to get back into some ordinary and predictable and steady and stable. We have been living through so much uncertainty and unpredictability and even chaos and fear.

The past several months have been anything but ordinary. And looking ahead, for several months yet we will not have too much ordinary.

But then, the question we need to face if we have not as yet might well be: what exactly is "ordinary?" What do we mean by ordinary? What do we expect to find, to experience in this "ordinary?"

Perhaps we respond by suggesting that ordinary means getting back to the way things were before . . . 

But do we really want to go totally back to the way things were before our lives were upended by this pandemic?

Perhaps we need to do a close examination of what has changed over these months for us.

What happens if, when reflecting back over the pandemic months, we look not at what was lost but rather at what may have been gained? What are the blessings we can find in these months?

Seriously? Would you really and honestly say that there were none for you? No blessings at all? No treasures discovered? No awarenesses reawakened? Nothing that you would want to hold onto when times return to "normal?" 

What might the New Normal, the New Ordinary look like for you after what we have been living through these past months?

This Ordinary Time that we enter into now is characterized by the color green. And green is the color of the grass and the leaves and the pines and, well, so many growing things.

And that says volumes about what Ordinary Time should embody - growth.

All of our lifetime is meant to be a time of constant growth and discovery, all of our lifetime. And that includes that Pandemic Time.

What might your New Ordinary look like?

Meantime, 

Keep Praying

 . . . and Stay Safe!