I seem to be working from a place of urgency lately. We have had some projects going on at home that I’m suddenly aware of feeling as though I’m nesting. Last month we cut down a maple tree in our front yard and we still have the logs gathered together and to the side. We are searching for a sawyer to come and cut planks for us, but I’d like that done sooner rather than later. I decided the deck on the back of the house couldn’t wait until July to be refinished, it had to be done now. We live in what is to be the epicenter of the emergence of billions, yes BILLIONS, of cicadas starting in the next couple of weeks. Refinishing the deck now means contending with falling maple seeds and dead cherry blossoms, not to mention rain every few days. And then there are all sorts of smaller projects involving rearranging furniture, sorting and organizing things, tossing things out or into the donation pile, and of course yard work. It all feels like nesting.
Nesting is what expectant mothers do as they approach their due date. It involves cleaning, organizing, and preparing the house and family to welcome the new baby. No! I’m not expecting, I’m beyond that with a 24 ½ year old and a 21 year old. But this sense goes beyond the need to do a spring cleaning.
We are nearing the middle of the 50-day season of Easter. Creation is definitely stretching with new shoots, flowers, leaves, and there are signs that the earliest of the cicadas have made it out of the ground. The various bees are already busy and the frogs have also emerged from hibernation.
But there’s something else, a sense of a collective end to hibernation after this long year. Access to COVID-19 vaccines is bringing the light at the end of the tunnel much closer. We talk of the new “normal” and the pre-COVID/pre-pandemic “normal”. Soon we will emerge from a 13-month (at this writing) way of life.
We are creatures of habit and generally struggle to take on new habits, especially good ones; yet we tend to easily fall back into old habits, especially the not-so-good ones. As we emerge from our homes, our home classrooms, and our home offices, we will begin to make our way towards a new “normal”. Health experts keep warning us that distancing and masks will still be part of this new “normal” to some degree. People are eager to go back to “normal.”
But the pandemic has been very apocalyptic, revealing inequities, thriving racism, fears, injustices, and the uglier side of our pre-COVID “normal.” I want to go back to hugging my friends and family, filling the seats around my dining table, having 3-hour breakfasts with my closest friend, having a full worship in the sanctuary, our girls’ week away at a little house surrounded by woods, firepits, neighborhood swim meets. I want all those good, normal things.
But I also want the not so good normal things to not return. I’m hoping that we have been awakened this past year to the social and economic inequalities that leave so many struggling for everything with what seems like little to no chance to give the next generation a better life. It seems so unreal that in a country that can have so many billionaires, we also have so many more living in poverty and so many experiencing homelessness.
I follow the Anam Cara Ministries Facebook page, but unfortunately, they do not cross post to their website so if you have Facebook, you can find them there. This week’s theme focuses on what the disciples did after Jesus’ death and resurrection. After spending 3 years with him, they went back to what they knew before…they went back to their pre-Jesus normal. Fishing. And struggled to catch anything. But in their sorrow, confusion, lack of direction, going back to the familiar, to what they knew how to do, to what had been normal seemed to make the most sense. It was comfortable. And it didn’t work.
This week’s posts have really resonated with me. This past year many of us have learned that we can do with much less shopping and buying of stuff. We also don’t need to cram every waking minute with activity. And while we turned to technology as a safe way of learning, working, and gathering, we’re also tired of looking at a screen. Maybe, hopefully, we’ve learned that we’re hungry to be in each other’s presence.
So in the approaching future, will we forget that we can do without that dust collector for the living corner, or who we really long to be with? Will we forget the societal and systemic inequalities many people face? How likely are we to return to our old “normal”, our familiar ways of living because that’s what we knew and were comfortable with? Will we be able to see the new “normal” we can fashion with less stuff, with more time to catch our breath, and with slow times spent sitting next to one another and having deep conversations? Maybe we can spend some of our recaptured time and energy looking at how we do things in our various community groups and make adjustments to better the lives of our neighbors.
Maybe this sense of urgency to clean, organize, get things done; this maternal sense of nesting, is about getting ready for the new life of spring, of Easter, for the chance to live more kindly, generously, and more in community. We have a chance at, if not a clean slate, an opportunity to make serious adjustments that will be good for our neighbors as well as for ourselves. May we be courageous in embracing new opportunities and possibilities as we find our new “normal” in the weeks and months to come.
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