Normal

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Yesterday I was talking with a sort of mentor who has listened to me over the past couple of years, and I asked what advice he would have for me going forward, since I'm not sure how much more our lives will intersect.

His response: "I think you will regret it someday if you don't start writing. Writing something. Your blog, a book, whatever. I think you'll be sorry if you don't do more of that, get yourself back into it."

So, because I respect his thinking, nearly half a year after I wrote about the possibility and the power of always beginning anew, here I am on my blog, beginning anew.

I had started a post sometime in the time between January and now, to share the poem below as a way of expressing what this year so far has been like. After the January New Year's post, a good chunk of my free time was spent helping a special person in my life by proofing and editing their master's thesis. Once that was done, the free time was spent traveling to visit friends out of town as well as hosting a friend from out of town. Oh, and both a personal retreat and a group retreat. A pretty full month.

By the end of February it was becoming clear that life was about to be hit by the novel coronavirus, and March ushered in the reality of that with all its unsettling dynamics. I was closely watching the news coming from Italy, with daily death counts and pictures of coffins the stuff of surreality. We had beloved people in Bergamo, the hot spot, who became ill with flu symptoms.

Normal life here began closing down. I stocked up on groceries. Started seeing my clients through a screen. Learned that someone I had had lunch with the first week of March, had been exposed to people who had tested positive, so I stayed in for over two weeks straight just to be careful.

Photo by Andrew Buchanan on Unsplash

Then one Sunday morning I woke and found a text message, "Croatia had an earthquake." It was March 22, and until I could get more details later that morning, I had no idea if people we knew were okay or not. We were so thankful to learn that as bad as it was, it could have been much worse. Then that same week two different friends in Croatia were hospitalized with serious problems.

March was an apocalyptic sort of time for everyone. Writers have been using that word to refer to the pandemic, not so much as an "end of time" word, but in the literal sense that an apocalypse is an unveiling of reality, pulling away the props and curtains we have in place in what we think of as normal life. We've been able to see serious cracks and crevices and crooked places as the veil has been pulled away. It's been a painful time in many ways.

In early April a very dear friend died. I'm sure I'll write more about that later.

Then near the end of May began the events that led up to the ongoing protests and all the difficult and painful realities and the accompanying emotions intertwined with that part of our country's story.

All to say that even though I had thought I'd be writing more in 2020, it was as if my mind went into survival mode. All my energy was needed to just keep taking the hits, as it were, and keep up the necessary functioning, working with clients and occasionally teaching for our class at church (via Zoom), learning to teach piano through a screen, helping a group tasked with making decisions about when and how our church might return to some kind of meeting in person. (We have not yet.)

The early days of the pandemic often took me back to Croatia, to the early days of the war in 1991. It was uncanny how many emotional memories I had during March. Of course a virus spreading around the world was very different from a war starting, but I repeatedly had intuitive flashes, my body and mind making connections back almost 30 years to those feelings of uncertainty, fear of the unknown, the hope that maybe it wouldn't be as bad as some predicted, the hard realization of how bad it could really be. The way time slowed down. The sense of isolation. Small things like the grocery store shelves emptying. Much bigger things like the wondering who would survive and who would be lost. Weeping at scenes of death coming through the media.

One night I sat at the piano and wept as I realized that it could be many months, possibly a couple of years, before I would sing in a chorus again. Certainly not the greatest suffering of the situation, but it represented so much more than what might seem to some a simple hobby.

Since the third grade, I have kept some kind of journal. It started in a little green diary with a lock and key and has gone on to fill bound books of various sizes and shapes, with rarely a week between writings, and sometimes daily writing for significant periods of time.

But for the years that I lived in Croatia, I have nothing in writing beyond letters and occasional notes in a planner that I've found in my desk there. I did no journaling for three full years.

I think the past few months have been something like those three years. The mind can only do so much, and my mind hasn't had the energy or ability to put things in writing.

"Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity," said William Wordsworth. My dear English teacher used to emphasize the importance of the "recollected in tranquillity" part of that process; one's best writing doesn't tend to come completely spontaneously, but requires some distance for reflection and a sort of absorption and assimilation. And sometimes writing at all seems to require some distance.

Perhaps I'll share one day a poem I did actually compose in those early days, before the virus had clearly arrived in our area. But for now I will share a poem by someone else. I've shared this poem with many of my clients over the years, people struggling when life events have taken them so far from what they had called normal before. I don't recall where I came across it, but since then I've learned more about its author and just love it all the more for the life behind the words.

We've all lost some of our Normal since I last wrote on this blog. I hope that anyone reading this has been able to hold on to enough Normal to keep you anchored in the midst of all the change. And I hope you'll find some courage and strength in this poem, especially when you consider the writer, whose life you can learn more about via the link at the end.

About Normal

Right now,
I don’t know what Normal is
Anymore.
That’s because Normal has been changing
So much,
So often,
Lately.
For a long while of lately.
I’d like Normal to be
Okayness.
Good health…
Emotional health,
Medical health,
Spiritual health.
I’d like Normal to be
Like that.
For now though,
I know that Normal won’t be normal
For a little while…
But somehow,
Sometime,
Even if things are not Normal,
They’ll be okay.
That’s because I believe
In the great scheme of things,
And Life.

May 2001

From the book Hope through Heartsongs, written by Mattie J.T. Stepanek, a 10-year-old “poet and peacemaker” who died from a rare form of muscular dystrophy. He started writing poems when he was five to allow his mom to “see what was inside of him” and he continued to write up until his death at age 13.

https://www.daily-journal.com/opinion/the-faith-of-mattie-stepanek/article_cbb29c1d-4af3-5ee1-89b6-5dc782705ccd.html

Now I Begin

I thought I would sleep in on January 1st. Rudy, our dog had other ideas. He, of course, had not stayed up to midnight, and apparently he felt like 5:00 was a good time to get up the next morning. Since his getting up sometimes means "knocking" on the door to the hallway to be sure someone is aware it's breakfast time (at least by his reckoning), my morning didn't go as I had planned.

And I'm so glad. After tending to Rudy, I decided to make the most of it, lit a candle, and waited. The window in our bedroom faces east, so I turned the chair so I could face east also.

Early morning has always been my friend, but because of the trees all around and the closeness of the houses where we live, I rarely think of trying to see the sun rise, because it's just so hard to see it until it's higher in the sky and all the pretty colors have faded. And many mornings when I am up around that time, if I do look out, all I see is gray turning to blue.

But New Year's Day, as I sat there and looked, I could actually see, between the roofline of our house and the neighbors' trees, the rosy presence of the sun coming up, like a flower blossoming beyond the trees. The night's condensation on the window blurred the view, but it was perhaps more lovely for the gentle blurring.

I have been reading Fr. Timothy Gallagher's latest book, Overcoming Spiritual Discouragement, which is based on excerpts from the writing of a priest, Fr. Bruno Lanteri, who lived through the death of his mother at an early age, significant health issues that affected the choices available to him in vocation, significant setbacks in his ministry, and even arrest and exile because of Napoleon's attacks on the church during the time of the French Revolution.

We talk about making New Year's resolutions, but I think we often forget the word "resolve" that they depend on. Determination. Firm commitment. Fixedness of purpose. In the life of Fr. Lanteri, his plans and his work were interrupted in ways completely beyond his control. But rather than giving up, he began anew. And clearly the ability to come back from political exile and start over at the age he did, came from a lifetime of developing the virtue of perseverance. From the book:

Say then with boldness, "Now I begin," and go forward constantly in God's service.

Do not look back so often, because one who looks back cannot run.

And do not be content to begin only for this year.

Begin every day, because it is for every day, even for every hour of the day,

that the Lord taught us to say in the Our Father, "Forgive us our trespasses," and,

"Give us this day our daily bread."

And recognizing that sometimes we falter because of our own choices, he wrote:

If I should fall a thousand times a day, a thousand times a day I will begin again,

with new awareness of my weakness, promising God with a peaceful heart, to amend my life.

I will never think of God as if he were of our condition

and grows weary of our wavering, weakness, and negligence.

Rather, I will think of what is truly characteristic of him and what he prizes most highly,

that is, his goodness and mercy, knowing that he is a loving Father who understands our weakness, 

is patient with us, and forgives us.

The book has been such a blessing, and reading it right around the turning of the year has made it even more so.

I have several unfinished projects, unrealized ideas. New Year's has given me time to reflect on the things out of my control over the past decade (a job ending, turmoil of moving into private practice, my mom's serious health problems and death, neck pain, a nerve block, and two major surgeries, extended family crises), things within my realm of influence but still unexpected (the opportunity to do a Doctor of Ministry degree, time-consuming commitments at church), and the things that are very much my own responsibility (procrastination, sometimes plain old laziness, struggling with the addictive pull of the Internet.)

For all of these, I have found it so helpful to say, "Now I begin," no matter when I originally had the idea or started the project, and no matter how often I fall into bad old habits. It has been so helpful in moving forward and letting go of the past.

I'm so thankful I was unexpectedly awakened and had that sunrise moment. I'm thankful for Epiphany tomorrow and a continued meditation on the theme of light. And the Light.

And I'm thankful for the words of Fr. Lanteri:

Above all, I have asked the Lord to give you great courage and firm hope in God,

so that by this virtue, overcoming all discouragement 

and striving not to lose that precious time the Lord gives us,

you may attain greater good for yourself and for others,

especially since the Lord has given you so many means for this and the desire to accomplish it.

Now I begin.