How often in recent weeks we’ve thought: nothing is ordinary; nothing seems quite right. A pandemic health crisis has concerned us, and a sense that “Everything seems deeply colored by tints of ‘nothing is usual’ even as everything tastes as if the colors and ingredients of life were “off” has consumed us.
In these weeks, for many of us, everything is different. Like for my church, Trinity in Hovland, and other churches from coast-to-coast, time-zone to time-zone, continent to continent and for all, church community or just one individual: we all are trying to figure out how to replace gathering in person with “not-gathering yet-coming together.” Nothing, in this time, feels ordinary.
Right now, everything seems out of the ordinary; not quite right, for nothing is quite right. Physical distancing from relations, friends, best friends…the words “Nothing is quite right, about this,” does not begin to describe this.
In the midst of nothing seems quite right, we discover even worse can come! And then, a loved young person from our community finds life unbearable; friends and community grieve for the loss of this life and for the family that faces this deepest grief.
And then comes a terrible fire, destroying the present and past in Grand Marais. For us, dear community, far and wide, everything we had begun to adjust to in social distancing is blurred, furthering our knowing that nothing now, is usual.
Everything, dear community, seems not-quite-right— everything is unusual. And so together we find ourselves saying: Nothing is quite right. Everything seems “off-kilter or-worse” in this time. Because truth be told, NOTHING IS RIGHT; everything is out-of-balance.
Here in our community so much has come our way, including the death of a young one, loved and loving. And a fire that destroyed three businesses, creating loss of hope, income, and sustenance. Surely, we think, this cannot be right! It must be a mirage, or mistake, yet it is true. Surely we think we can say: pandemic; death of young ones; fire destruction within a community: each the worst; together, even more. Together we cry: this we cannot bear! Death from suicide, there are no words that make this kind of death easier to bear. Fires that destroy and illnesses that bring fear, all are so powerful and seem so over-powering.
In the midst of this “nothing is right” time it is easy to be bulldozed over, as happens when our country with top medical and analytical government agencies is caught in the bull’s eye of the pandemic. When we realize as a community that there are events we cannot change: businesses destroyed, jobs astray, hopes dimmed, and in deepest sorrows, lives lost.
Nothing seems quite right, a plea heard long before now. A plea given voice by those surrounding the tomb after the death of Jesus. Nothing seems quite right, say the women at the tomb of Jesus. They see the one of Love above all else, dead. Then alive, then with them, Love in Christ Lives, Reigns.
And in the midst of that Love, this ever-present Love, we discover how to help one another by picking up groceries for a friend, bringing hand-crafted gifts of art work, calling one another with sorrow and with (hard as it is to find) humor. Calling family and friends, even people who are only acquaintances.
And that becomes our usual, in this unusual time, a gift from God. Our ways of finding care for one another within this now and in the midst of all that comes: a wave, a kiss blown across empty space; a hug-to-another seen only across skies, a “howdy hello on technology.” All showing one another Love, a gift from God. God, who shows us in these difficult times, that ordinary or extraordinary love is present. God is with us, no matter the loneliness or separation. God’s embrace is with us, most especially when nothing seems right.
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month our contributor is Pastor Kris Garey, Trinity Lutheran Church, Hovland.
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