“The coronavirus pandemic has led to a collective loss of normalcy.” Oh brother, has it ever! Everything looks familiar; yet, everything has changed.
Over eleven weeks ago, a friend posted a link to an article in the Harvard Business Review, The Discomfort You are Feeling is Grief.
Indeed. In these weeks, over four hundred and twenty thousand souls perished; over one hundred thirteen thousand were in the United States. (Johns Hopkins University )
Even if we could restore everything back to “normal” – like it was mid-March, 2020, life would still not be right. If the coronavirus pandemic has led to a collective loss of normalcy, in the last two weeks, what happened since the murder of George Floyd is leading to something beyond normalcy.
Watching the fast-moving events of horror, and the reporting; reading the responses on social media, and reflecting on my life since the turmoil of the 1960’s, I lost my words. I am glad others did not:
Those eight minutes watching Floyd die, and all that have come after, have again overflowed to the world our country’s anguishes and failures. The diseases from within and from without can’t be untwined, challenging us to be humble, to repent, to listen, and to pray. (Earth On Our Heads by Mindy Belz
Normalcy is not a safe, sane, or good place to return. Only God is.
The Discomfort You are Feeling is . . .