Alleluia!
Christ is risen!
Grace and
peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
There are
a couple of phrases that have entered our collective lexicon
that are
somewhat helpful to us, but not always.
These are
‘life goes on,’ and ‘the new normal.’
Whenever
there is a sudden trauma in our lives,
especially
when there is a death,
well-meaning
folks say, ‘Life goes on.’
I counsel
people about what to expect in the first year after a death
and I may
use the phrase ‘the new normal.’
Perhaps we
even use these phrases to comfort ourselves.
‘Life goes
on,’ we say, as if trying to convince ourselves.
And indeed
life does go on.
After a
period of shock and grief, we eventually become adjusted to tragedy.
We even
see this as we as a nation
adjust
ourselves to acts of indiscriminate violence
at
schools, universities, public events, and military bases.
After a
brief focus on these terrible events,
some
hand-wringing and angry calls for reform,
these
events quickly fade from the public consciousness
as the
next news cycle brings more events
upon which
to focus our attention.
We as communities
are okay with the deaths of so many young people
from drug
abuse, even as we legalize drugs in order to obtain revenue
and
supposedly drive down crime.
We get
used to ‘the new normal,’ and we say, ‘life goes on.’
