Recovering Normal

There is nothing normal about the present moment. I keep finding myself saying, “I never thought I’d see the day that....” you can full in the blanks with your own list but mine have been, “I never thought I’d see the day that Costco had empty shelves, that the market had no eggs, or that I’d be rationing toilet paper. The latest is, “I never thought I’d see the day that I’d be tuning into Facebook along with other parishioners for Morning Prayer.” 

There was nothing normal about that but the moment was comforting as I saw comments coming in letting us know who was present and knowing that we were praying together in real time if not in a single space. I later sat at my desk to pen a note to the priest thanking him for pressing Facebook into the Lord’s service and in that action I felt a wonderful sense of normal. And then in melting sealing wax and applying my seal to the hot, red pool I felt the comfort of routine, of ritual. What an unexpected benefit to letter writing. I never thought I’d see the day that writing a letter would recover normal, or indeed that in such a broad sense normal would need recovering.