Return to Normal

Blog Post by
Rev. Bill Vincent
First Presbyterian Church of Union
and Pacific Presbyterian Church, Missouri

I find myself torn…about the return to normal.

I understand the yearning to get back together, see each other, and enjoy fellowship in one another’s physical presence.

I understand the need for an easing of the economic stress and pressure brought on by the pandemic.

I understand the desire for children to be back in school and learning, not only ‘the three ‘r’s’ but also the social skills of working and living together.

But there is an unspoken part of this return to normal that disturbs me:  the implicit normal where certain people continue to be unseen by the rest of us, where others are confined to the margins of society, and where Black lives really don’t matter.

A return to a normal that is not normal at all…or is, but shouldn’t be, for it negates a yearning for God’s sovereignty in our lives, it denies the prayer for “God’s kingdom come, God’s will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” it undermines the hope for God’s true kin-dom.

So I grieve when I discern people’s yearning for a return to that normal.

And, quite honestly, I am torn about what to say and how to say it, yet feel like I need to say something.

And I need to confess.

For I am a white male who grew up in the South.  I confess my own white privilege and the history of my blindness to it.

My eyes have been opened – or at least more opened than they were before.  For that, I am grateful…even as I am regretful that it has taken so long.

I share this not to try to earn points with anyone, but simply to confess something of my story, with the hope and the prayer that I might continue to learn and grow and change…and be better able to engage my story more sensitively, and more justly, with the story of others.

Still, I wonder:  Are we too eager to return to ‘normal’ – to the familiar, the usual, the (for some of us) comfortable – and too resistant to learning vital lessons and making crucial changes?

There is work to be done.  Including by me.

And I AM learning and growing.  And I realize I still have a long way to go.

And part of that realization is that a return to normal – i.e., a return to what used to be, in all its incivility and injustice and unfairness – is not an option and is not desirable, or at least not faithfully so.

So I offer a prayer, even as I seek to offer myself.

A prayer to God for a ‘return’ that is a ‘going forward’:  a ‘going forward’ toward that which is faithful and obedient, courageous and even counter-cultural, grace-filled and loving.

And so, a return to a normal that, in many ways, is not normal at all…but is God’s will.

And yes, O Lord, (as the song says it) “let it begin with me.”

Rev. Bill Vincent
First Presbyterian Church of Union
and Pacific Presbyterian Church, Missouri