Streams of Mercy

In the November 15th edition of The Presbyterian Outlook, I read a helpful article, “Using Disruption for Good,” by Gini Norris-Lane. By “good disruption” she means leaving what is known and embarking on an intentional journey of discovery and becoming what God is calling us to become in this “normal-yet-not-normal, still-pandemic-but-in-person world” we are living in. Such times call for “creative perseverance” as we work together to help shape what a “new normal” looks like in our world. She includes this quote from Walter Brueggemann’s book, Virus as a Summons to Faith : “God requires us to imagine, to risk , and to be vulnerable as we watch the new normal emerge among us.”

Another helpful article, recalling the 1980s baseball movie “Field of Dreams.” In the movie, Kevin Costner’s character has a wild dream to build a baseball diamond in the middle of his Iowa cornfields – “If you build it, they will come.” Jessica Tate challenges us to use our “collective imagination,” affirming that the church can build what it first imagines.

“To state the obvious, the Covid-19 global pandemic is a major disruption to life as we know it. In addition to the medical crisis, in the United States, the pandemic tore down the veil so that we have been forced to look at cracks in our collective foundation - cracks such as systemic racial injustice, deepening economic division and political fault lines. That has come with the backdrop of changing weather patterns that created havoc in many places over the past year – from hurricanes to wildfires … Every person I know is weary from all the disruption and change, from the uncertainty and the decision fatigue. Our collective desire seems to be for some normalcy, some familiarity, for something to be easy. I want to make the case that we resist that impulse in service of discipleship and building the kingdom of God.”

Tate quoted author and activist Sonya Renee Taylor:

“We will not go back to normal. Normal never was. Our pre-corona existence was not normal other than we normalized greed, inequity, exhaustion, depletion, extraction, disconnection, confusion, rage, hoarding, hate and lack. We should not long to return, my friends. We are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garment, one that fits all of humanity and nature.”

We now have the opportunity – together – “to stitch a new garment.” Giving thanks for that opportunity, and for those streams of mercy, never ceasing.

Elizabeth