By Dana Jean
In the year 2000, my grandparents moved out of the home they had spent 50 years in, having raised their seven children, surrounded by my grandfather’s brothers and their wives and kids, who all lived within shouting distance. They lived through the Great Depression as children, something that we gently teased them had affected their personalities in significant ways. Most amusing, in my opinion, was my grandmother’s inability to throw anything away. When they moved into their new home, my mother found a lobster in the deep freezer. From 1984.
Now, in the era of COVID-19, I sit here sheltering in place like most of you, wondering if we’re at the brink of another depression. Of course, I’m reading all the social media posts about businesses opening back up and how anxious people are to “get back to normal,” but I also catch an article here and there warning us that “normal” is a thing of the past. I wonder if that’s true, and what it means. I wonder if we ought to consider that maybe the old “normal” should take its leave so we might create a new “normal.” Could we do that? What would that even look like? What would we create?
I find myself thinking a lot about my grandparents, especially as I see people posting about cleaning their closets and garages! I myself have resisted doing that. I find myself wondering what else my grandparents brought with them from that experience of a Depression, besides their slight hoarding tendencies. I wonder what they left behind, changed forever by that era of their lives. I wonder if their parents thought about the before and after, if they were intentional about how they changed, or if the changes they made were organic, a result of the fear that it might happen again.
I wonder what we will bring out of this experience of sheltering in place, during a pandemic we didn’t foresee, and the subsequent financial impact it is already having and will undoubtedly continue to have on us all. What will we carry with us that will follow us the rest of our lives? Not a frozen lobster, I hope!
I imagine by now, eight (or is it nine?) weeks in, we’ve all seen the anecdotal reports of nature “taking a deep breath” while we are on hiatus; sea turtles hatching at unseen rates, dolphins showing up in the canals of Venice (not entirely true, apparently – only in the Grand Canal, not in the maze of smaller canals). There are also reports that air pollution diminished significantly in Europe and Asia. I know I see more wildlife even in my little suburban backyard, more birds, definitely a never-seen-before snake I could do without, and more anole lizards with their bold red throats than ever before.
Will we figure out how to carry this brighter, more energized, and healthier nature with us to greet the new normal? Will we love God better by caring more for his Creation? Will we at least notice and appreciate that creation more when we’re back to “normal?”
What about the deep breath our own existence seems to be taking? Have you noticed it too? I know I have. More people walking and riding bikes, more smiling dogs on leashes than I’ve ever seen. I see posts of what people are cooking and eating together, something our normally busy lives don’t always afford us time to do. Fig folks, I see your home improvement projects and game nights; your backyard campouts and high tea in fine china; I see your midweek lunch on the patio – in the middle of the work week, no less! I see your forgotten old photos with distant relatives tagged on social media, and your strings concerts on the porch for family and neighbors; I see your sidewalks chalked with cheerful, loving messages, and the “Hope Is Not Canceled” signs in your front yards. I see it all and I feel your joy.
Will we figure out how to leave behind a bit of our old busy-ness, our constant drive to check all the boxes, to be everything to everyone? Will we love ourselves better by carrying with us into a new normal the hopeful little ways we’ve entertained and uplifted ourselves and each other? Will we try to incorporate at least some of these new joys into the old normal?
What about the cracks that are starting to show in the facade of our society and systems? Have you seen them too? Tremendously revealing, in my opinion, is the newfound admiration we have for teachers, now that we all experience how hard it is to teach our own children; the realization that there isn’t a paycheck in the world big enough to compensate them for their amazing creativity, drive, and maybe most importantly, their patience. If we look closely, we can see the cracks in the healthcare and housing systems, too, and maybe it will hit home (finally) that the homeless have no safe space to shelter in place, no access to medical treatment if they get the virus (or any other illness for that matter), that our own health is tied to theirs. And, who isn’t repulsed by news that our elected officials likely cashed in their stock when they realized – before the rest of us did — which industries were about to get hit with financial ruin? Or, by our inability to be united in the face of crisis, possibly the first time in American history that we are failing to meet a crisis together, allowing our political opinions to push us even further apart. And now that we’ve seen the cracks, there’s no unseeing them. Is there?
Will we carry into the new normal our love for teachers and fight for better salaries, more robust benefits packages, more in-class supports? Will we listen when teachers tell us that standardized tests wreck real teaching opportunities and inhibit students’ learning, that we’re leaving kids behind? Will we fight for more affordable housing now, or for healthcare for all that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg? Will we love our neighbors better by remembering that our civic duty requires more of us than just the casting of a ballot every four years?
I wonder what we’ll take with us.
Friends, we surely have hard times coming as we watch the economy decline and people all over the world struggle to make ends meet. We will surely grieve (or are already grieving) the loss of loved ones to a virus we didn’t understand soon enough, maybe still don’t. And as the Church, we will surely have, perhaps more than ever before in our lifetime, opportunities for ministry, opportunities to love the Lord our God, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
So, what shall we take with us to create our new normal?