When will be this be over? When can we go back to ordinary time?
In some church Kalendars the seasons after the Feast of Epiphany and the Day of Pentecost are called Ordinary Time. These are the green days, the green seasons, the shorter one in early days of the new year, the later "the long green season" of mostly summer but then on and on into autumn.
But this year, we want to go back to normal. Will we ever?
As priests have noted, including Doyle from St Patrick's Kenwood in her Easter letter, we will be a new people when this is over.
The New Yorker writer David Remnick remarks in April 13th 2020 "Talk of the Town" that "we will greet our friends, face to face, at long-delayed Easter services and Passover Seders."
Not so sure. Some of those face-to-face greetings will happen in the consummation of time.
And we will be changed. That is the Easter promise. We shall all be changed.
We will be a new people. This is going to happen, regardless of the virus or its momentum.
What is going on, beneath the surface happenings of coronavirus shut-down, safe distancing, and two-meter socializing, is a global re-think of who we are. At least that is what the invitation is; the opportunity.
Again, for many of us. Some of us, our choices are limited, indeed tragically.
But we can in aggregate, as a community, begin to think about our society and what we want it to be. And what we want it to do.
Do we want to look out for the elderly? Do we want to begin to call them, relationally, "our elders" instead of the impersonal problem-solving "the seniors"? Do we want to look out for the unfortunate, the undeserving (yes) and the stranger among us?
Do we want them to earn it? Do we really think we can impose that requirement?
In the fraught political days ahead we will ask ourselves new questions.
Perhaps instead of discussing health care in terms of financial responsibilities - who's going to pay for this? who is liable if things go wrong? - but in terms of care: how well are we treating people?
In terms of voting maybe we will ask not how to limit the electorate to the congenial but how to ensure a legitimate plebiscite - including distance voting (absentee ballots and the like) and sensible redistricting.
Who deserves to be at the table may be met with more humility: as we are all welcome at the Lord's table.
JRL+
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