The New Normal

"I will give you back your health and heal your wounds, says the Lord. Now you are called an outcast----'Jerusalem for whom nobody cares." Jeremiah 30:17


While recently sorting out 'stuff' for my daughters to take to their new residences, I came across a book that someone had given one of them, "90 Minutes in Heaven." At first I tossed it in a box because there was absolutely no way that I could justify taking the time to read it. Yeh, I know, that's a lightbulb that has been going off lately, "If I have NO time for something, I need to make the time." I am almost through it, and of course have gleaned a couple of things to take with me on the Journey. So, from the opening of Chapter 14, "The New Normal":

"Some things happen to us from which we never recover, and they disrupt the normalcy of our lives. That's how life is.
Human nature has a tendency to try to reconstruct old ways and pick up where we left off. If we're wise, we won't continue to go back to the way things were (we can't anyway). We must instead forget the old standard and accept a "new normal."



Not trying to beat a dead horse, but of course I thought of the parish consolidation. Not because I can't move on,(God knows I'm trying!) but because people still blame some in the parish for not moving on in the direction they want. "Make our parish better!" goes the cry! Well, some are trying to make Transfiguration Parish into a new parish relying on their 'old' model. The model that the people in Kirby knew will not transfer to a larger urban parish. The model of the larger urban parish of St. Peter may seem to 'detached' for those used to a smaller form of interaction. A New Normal is a must in my mind.
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I must admit that when I wrote the Scipture verse at the beginning, I wanted to leave off the "Now you are an outcast" part because one of my sisters would say, "Karen give it a rest, noone is after the people of St. Mary's!" Ok, but I wrote it anyway because I really have let the persecution complex part go, and because I see "Jerusalem for whom nobody cares," part as thinking that to really accept going forward with the Lord, people may treat me and anyone else who ventures toward a New Normal as a type of outcast.

I think it was St. Francis who was out with his hoe in the garden when a fellow church member came out running saying that the Lord would be at the Chapel in an hour. Running to the Chapel, his friend yelled back to Francis that much need to be done and what would he be doing to get ready for the Lord's arrival? Francis, without looking up, said quietly, "Keep hoeing."


I often remember that story when others say "You HAVE to do this for the parish, to get ready to receive the Lord, to get ready for Him." I often wonder how they know that what I am already doing isn't what He wants?