June is a wonderful month. Actually, if we take a good perspective, all months are wonderful for one reason or another. But June is the month that transitions us from spring into summer; the summer solstice occurs marking the end of spring and the beginning of summer and providing us with the longest day of the calendar year with plenty of sunshine!
As this is being written businesses and individuals (and some churches) are processing the repeal of New York State’s COVID-19 related restrictions. In the month that summer emerges we, as western New York residents, will begin to be able to (as we feel comfortable) enjoy so many of the events and happenings that make life in our area special.
I’m resisting using the phrase ‘return to normal’ because I’m not sure that’s fitting. We have experienced an event that is (hopefully) a once-in-a-lifetime event. That event was tragic for some 600,000 Americans and nearly 4,000,000 worldwide. The cost to the loved ones of those lost is incalculable. The cost to the national and world economy is something that can be calculated but pales in comparison.
For the survivors, there were many lessons learned or possibly re-learned. We learned how much social interaction we needed, we learned how much social interaction we were willing to help others with, we learned some things about our federal and state governments, we learned what loneliness looked like, we learned what fear of the unknown looked like. We learned who our neighbors were. We learned how much toilet paper the local grocery store stocked.
I am looking forward to a New Normal, a perspective that allows us to look at the time that we as a nation, as a state, as a community were in a period of doubt, of insecurity, of fear and understand that we have been given, by our Creator, the ability to face our doubt, our insecurity, our fear and acknowledge Him as we go through trials.
We know that the Scriptures tell us that we should count it all joy when you meet trials of various kinds (James 1:2). We know that the Scriptures tell us that For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: (Ecclesiastes 3:1). We know that the pandemic, from which we are emerging, gave us all the opportunity to test in real-time the concepts that the Scriptures teach us. In the new normal, let’s resolve to put into practice those lessons, absent a crisis.