By Barry Casey
“Normal” is what you don’t have to think about. It’s habitual, constant, grounded in assumptions. There are few surprises. It may even pass unnoticed until there is a rupture in the routine.
And that’s where we are now.
In the past weeks and months, as people have grown weary of lockdowns, masks, and stay-at-home orders, a new genre of projections has grown around the idea of what a “new normal” will look like. It’s a way of reassuring ourselves that some kind of normal will resume in time, coupled with the feeling that whatever it is, it won’t be what we’re used to.
Crises create fissures that must later be filled in or at least bridged. But sometimes they change the landscape enough and are severe enough that—to push the metaphor—we have to build a new path around them or figure out a way to fly over them. In other words, they force changes in means and direction, maybe even in purpose and goal.
We don’t know the shape of our lives in the future except in broad outline. When 9/11 happened, the catch phrase was, “This was the day the world changed.” And in general terms, a lot did change. We live now with fewer civil liberties than we were used to in the 90s. Our travel routines include much more scrutiny and delays. Prejudice and violence toward Muslims in American society has increased and remained high since 2001. Oil prices have fluctuated, but despite fracking, they have doubled since 9/11. And the war in Afghanistan, the longest in American history, continues, despite fitful attempts at peace among the warring groups. But in the amount of people directly affected, and to the
degree that daily life has been upended, the pandemic has been far more consequential than 9/11. It seems clear now that the country was not prepared for a public health crisis of this magnitude. The cascading effects of closing public life and shutting down much of the economy will no doubt be felt for generations to come.
In the AC— “After Covid-19”—era, we can foresee long- lasting changes. At a personal level, many of us will be much more aware of the risk of infection, washing our hands more frequently, cleaning surfaces regularly, and carrying sanitizer. Many thousands of people will continue to work from home. Colleges and universities will refine their online teaching and shift their course offerings away from face-to-face teaching. The use of adjuncts, who are paid less and receive no benefits, will no doubt increase. When a vaccine is developed, anti-vaccination groups will campaign vigorously against it. Thousands of small businesses will not reopen, foreclosures on homes will escalate, renters will fall behind, and the numbers of homeless will skyrocket. And underlying all that social turmoil will be the lingering grief and trauma from hundreds of thousands of deaths.
For most of us, considering what is “normal” and what might constitute the “new normal” is a rather passive exercise, if that’s not too much of an oxymoron to swallow. We probably don’t give it much thought until there is both a backlog of things we want to change and the will to change them. We might wish to make a clean break with that which holds us back; we might decide to press toward that for which we hope.
If it’s true that the normal is what we accommodate to and then habitualize, we now have an opportunity to remake our set course with some forethought. Movement in two directions is possible. There is the anticipation and projection of our lives forward into what will become the new normal. There is a recalling of our past lives, in measures of repentance, sorrow, and a sense of loss. In time, there may also be forgiveness and gratitude. Both movements are bound together: the forward projection doesn’t occur without the remembrance and looking back. Even if we turn our backs on the past and look ahead to the future, it’s the past that conditions our desire for a new start.
After the death of Jesus, the disciples sheltered in place. They retreated behind locked doors. They had just gone through the most crushing defeat and the most astonishing reversal that humans could experience—all within three days. What were they to do now?
Only Mary Magdala ventured out on Sunday morning and made her way to the garden where Jesus was buried. When she breathlessly returned with the stunning news that Jesus was alive, Peter and John raced to the tomb, but they did not see Him. They had to trust in Mary’s word. Later that evening, Jesus appeared to the disciples, despite the locked door, and reassured them. A week later, He appeared again to them in an upper room. What did they do in the days between those appearances?
Sometime later they are up in Galilee, away from the dangers in Jerusalem. They are going fishing, the one thing they know how to do that doesn’t demand their full attention. They can go through the motions without thinking, for fishing is something they’ve been doing since they were boys working for their fathers. But for all that, they don’t catch anything, though they work all night.
In the early morning, a hundred yards from shore, they see a figure standing by a low fire. He calls out to them, “Friends, have you caught anything?” They answer, “No.” “Shoot the net to starboard, and you’ll make a catch.” And when they do, their nets are so full they can hardly haul them in. “It’s the Lord!” John exclaims. Without hesitation, Peter throws himself into the water to wade ashore.
And there is Jesus, with a couple of fish cooking on the fire, warm bread, and a gentle smile. “Bring some of your catch,” he says. And they eat. None of them dares ask, “Who are you?” but all of them know. In the midst of the routine, in the familiar places where Jesus first called them, they are awakened. Jesus prods Peter: “Do you love me?” Three times He asks and three times Peter answers yes. “Then feed my sheep,” says Jesus. Peter will never forget how Jesus turned His numbed regret into a burning love.
Jesus reaches us in our normal routines. He will accept us as we are, but He’s not content to leave us there. There is something new to be formed.
The normal does not demand our attention. It has become so routinized that we slip it on like an old shoe. That can be comforting, but we miss a lot when that happens. When we anticipate how our spiritual life might change because of the pandemic, it calls for our attention. Attention is what we bring to the imaginative reading of Scripture. Attention allows us to see what is revealed by God in spite of our boredom and our fear. Attention is what changes our passivity to an attitude of hunger for Christ’s gifts.
After this pandemic, what might be our new spiritual normal? We will still—and perhaps even more keenly—experience Christ in our personal and our communal spiritual lives. Can we open our hearts to our will, which is often hidden to us, but which flickers to life and light when we listen to Christ with full attention? “What are the elements that go to make the concentration of purpose, out of which great and effective resolves arise?” asks Austin Farrer.
As a worshipping community, we long for oneness. But unity is never a done deal. It is a constant matter of attention and will. “We have talked so much as if unity means uniformity,” notes Mark Oakley in The Collage of God. “These words refer to different things. As celebrants of diversity . . . as individuals alongside each other, our uniformity as a Christian body has never been and will never be. It is unity for which we pray, and it will only ever be revealed as authentic if there are shades of difference amongst us.”
In our differences, may our attention be held by Jesus Christ, who is forever the same in His love, forever new in His forgiving.
–Barry Casey taught religion, philosophy, and communication for 37 years in Maryland and Washington, D.C. He is now retired and writing in Burtonsville, Maryland. More of the author’s writing can be found on his blog, “Dante’s Woods.” His first collection of essays, “Wandering, Not Lost,” was recently published by Wipf and Stock. Email him at: [email protected]