Well, here we are, anticipating September, which usually means the “back to school” season. Even if we are long past attending school … in the days when that meant a predictable schedule … the world around us reminds us that this IS the season. School supplies sales at stores, TV ads for school clothes, kids and busses, and slowing down in school zones. And, oh yes, cooler weather and leaves turning color.
This year, we have been eagerly hoping that September will bring some sort of return to “normal”. Although we caution ourselves “whatever ‘normal’ means”, we very much long to return to something we think of as “normal”. The way things used to be, what we are familiar with, and comfortable with. We heartily wish for an end to the mixed messages about vaccinations and masks and all the rest … please!
As a “Senior Citizen”, I find myself very much longing for return to how things used to work … to “normal”. I’m especially cranky when my computer doesn’t work the way I expect it to. Please, I grouse, don’t tell me three ways to do something, just one way. And stick to it! Recently, it has taken me weeks to recover from the hacking of one of my email accounts. My patience with “chatting” online with some distant entity, rather than being able to talk to a human being, is very limited. My emotional bandwidth is quite narrow, and I have to take on this process piece by piece, with frequent breaks.
This is why I’ve been very surprised that ZOOM has turned out to be for me such a gift for the past year-plus. I’ve enjoyed the Good Shepherd ZOOM worship services, participating with coffee cup nearby (and sometimes a cat on my lap) early on Sunday mornings. Praying and singing along with other folks. Somehow, it doesn’t feel like I’m all by myself.
Most of all I’ve treasured the weekly ZOOM calls with my adult daughters and son-in-law who live in Philadelphia. In the pre-COVID days, I could anticipate two or three visits to Philadelphia a year. And a phone call with one or another here and there between those trips “back East.” It’s going on two years since I’ve seen them “in person”. Yikes!
However, thanks to ZOOM, every week the four of us are on-screen at the same time for an hour (one of them sometimes with a cat on her lap). We can tell each other what’s going on in our lives, share stories, and laugh a lot. It’s almost as though we are all in the same room at the same time. (I am very grateful for their patience with this arrangement, because two of them are on business ZOOM calls sometimes all-day long, and are pretty ZOOMED out by Friday afternoon). But it is a very special hour in my week!
What this has reminded me of is our human tendency to experience change as loss. Any change is seen as loss. My surprise at my own grateful reaction to the ZOOM technology is telling me that sometimes … sometimes ... change that we don’t anticipate and can’t do anything about may contain within it a hidden gift. Thanks be to God!