Not Normal

“I can’t wait until things get back to normal.”

I’ve uttered those words dozens of times in the past 10 months. I want to be able to go out to dinner with Nancy. I want to be able to grab coffee or a beer with friends. I want to see people’s faces without masks. I want to hug…just about anyone!

I just want things to go back to the way they were. You know…normal.

And then I read these profound, poetic and prophetic words from Sonya Renee Taylor,

“We will not 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.”

What a powerful reminder that while the pre-Covid world worked well for me, it didn’t work well for many others, especially my sisters and brothers of color. And while I still long to be able to dine out with my bride, God is growing within me a much deeper longing to, in Sonya Renee Taylor’s words, “stitch a new garment”. I want to be a part of God’s movement to weave a new world in which justice prevails, reconciliation thrives, and love wins.

I’m not giving up on the whole hug thing, but I no longer want to go back to “normal.” I want to press ahead to better. For all.

Jeff Marian serves as lead pastor at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Burnsville, MN

Our staff was recently asked to choose a word to describe the world we feel called to create.

Here is some of what they said. What word would you add?