Normal

I keep suggesting to Cindi that after X our lives will return to normal. She laughs and tells me that my picture of normal doesn't match reality. I suspect she's probably right - she usually is.

I remember the long days with the kids in NC - Church was the center of our lives, but Church was mostly just a single service on Sunday morning and then Evening Prayer on Sunday evening, and once a month a potluck. Now it seems as if life is "run, run, run." Always there is more to do than gets finished in a day. Always there is guilt over the tasks that were pushed aside. Always there is the feeling that just give it a few days and life will go back to "normal."

One thing I know: if I let the events of the day crowd out praying the Office, I am always the weaker for it, and ill-equipped to meet the challenges that keep coming. Whatever comes in a day, however hectic "normal" is right now, there are certain boundaries that cannot be transgressed without damage to the soul. Time for prayer. Time for the Word. Time for reading. Time for family.

And beyond time, beyond all times, the Gift from eternity that came down into our rush-rush to give us a share in His eternal peace: the Holy Eucharist. Here is THE haven, the place of peace, the normal beyond all normals. Here is praise and thanksgiving to the Lamb. Here is the Lamb in His sacrifice of love. Here is a gift that I could never earn or deserve, and yet which God reaches me in His unfathomable love. No matter what is going on, when the cry rings out: Sursum corda! there is a call to leave all else behind and soak in the peaceful joy of eternity where we will need no lamp nor sun, for Christ will be our all.