The New Normal

   

l

Announcements will soon be made about how our isolation will be gradually eased, and so we rejoice to feel that we are beginning to come through the lockdown and the consequent isolation. Of course, even those adjustments will not be easy and we may all feel concerns about just how this will work out. The global impact, the collective loss of our way of living, the devastation to the economy, jobs, relationships and routines is unprecedented, grief experts say: together, all over the world, we are experiencing the end of things as we thought that we knew them and so grief, a sense of loss about it all is natural and normal.

So individually, and as families and as a church, we have created new routines as we search for and embrace hope. We have been creative in the ways that we have approached life. The huge amount of generosity and care shown by everyone has been overwhelming, a great source of comfort and hope, and the friendships formed over the phone and on line has been life changing. As one hospital chaplain said recently ‘wherever you are in this wilderness you can still work for peace, shalom. We can all be peace bringers in this new normal.’  

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;

where there is hatred,

let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love;

for it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal Life.

Prayer of St Francis