Thus says the Lord,
who makes a way in the sea,
a path in the mighty waters,
who brings out chariot and horse,
army and warrior;
they lie down, they cannot rise,
they are extinguished, quenched like a wick:
Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.
— Isaiah 43:19
The phrase being bandied about these days is “new normal.” It is meant to say that we will reach a place of comfort and predictability, but it won’t be the world we knew in February of this year. The chances are that this Coronavirus has changed us. We are different, and we will be different. That may or may not be welcome news, depending on exactly what changes.
I don’t know what the world will look like in a year, or two years, or five years. I think about what I thought would happen a year ago, two years ago, five years ago and how God surprises me everyday. At some level, that is the hope for us: God is the one bringing new things into being. For those of us of faith, the idea of reaching for a new reality invites us to dream with God. To see what might be, to look forward in hope, even while we admit we might be leaving behind somethings we enjoyed. The new reality, whatever it will be is a chance for us as people of faith to look for the hand of God and to become “co-workers with God” (I Cor. 3:9).
There is a quotation going around the internet from an author by the name of Sonya Renee Taylor: “We will never go back to normal. Normal never was. Our pre-corona existence was not normal other than we normalized greed, inequity, exhaustion, depletion, extraction, disconnection, confusion, rage, hoarding, hate, and lack. We should not long to return, my friends. We are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garment. One that fits all of humanity and nature.” May it be so.
“This Is The Day of New Beginnings”
This is a day of new beginnings,
Time to remember and move on,
Time to believe what love is bringing,
Laying to rest the pain that’s gone.
Lord God, pour down upon your people the Spirit of dreams and visions. Send forth your spirit and we shall be created and you shall renew the earth. Amen.
Pastor Tom