Remembering what we learned….don’t go back to normal!

In the last few weeks, we have been reminded, from lots of directions, that it has been four years now since the Covid pandemic period began. I am sure like me you are wanting to move on in many ways because no-one likes to dwell in the past, especially when those times have been hard. However, there were also many good things that we learned weren’t there, and said we should not forget once we got back to more normal times. They say that we learn most, not when times are easy, but when we are sometimes tested and life is harder……then we are more open to change and take on lessons we might not otherwise want to hear.

On a national level, the Covid enquiry has already been underway for a long time, but is likely to take several more years to get to its conclusions and many are not sure that it is even asking the right questions. In my view I don’t think we can afford to wait that long, so for me I want to put into practice at least the personal lessons that can’t wait before any other such event might happen again. At the time many of us said if only we could get back to normal…but what is normal life? Were we really leading normal lives before? What I want to keep reminding myself is this: what things have been good to go back to normal, but what do we need to remember that we have learned and should not go back to what was not that normal before! In summary, what did we learn that we should carry on in more normal times?

At the time in one of my monthly comments that in the future we need to be better prepared of course for pandemics and to protect our economy, but most of all to support the social aspects of life better: what it means to be human and might lead a ‘good and successful’ life: individually, as families, as communities and as a society.

A key thing that Covid taught us all I think were the benefits of slowing down instead of always rushing around. This is just one example, but what are the range of things that we learned that should be our new normal? Here are the things that I felt were the important lessons at the time and I feel in our current time we need to keep in mind even more than ever:

Community v Individualism – life is about playing our part with other people in the place that we live

Family v Fracture – life is about appreciating each other as husband, wife, mum, dad, sister and brother

Friendship v Forgetting – life is about valuing friendship rather than forgetting to make contact

Needs v Wants – life is about focusing more on what we need than always want

Time v Rushing – life is about taking time and not always rushing to the next moment

Quality v Quantity – life is about the quality of what we have than always the quantity

Creativity v Consumerism – life is about being creative not just consuming

Contentment v Happiness – life is doing what is right and good than just our individual happiness

Love v Like – life is about the full breadth and depth of love not just love in terms of what we like

Communication v Silence – life is about taking the initiative to make contact not staying quiet

God v No God – life is about knowing God and trusting in him when life is uncertain

If these things are something of the important things we learned in the Covid period, we do need to keep reminding ourselves of them and helping each other live more normal lives in this sense. How might we make such changes? At the time I suggested three Christian ideas of how we make change in our lives:

Reflect – take time to reflect of what it is you need to learn

Repent – decide how you need to change direction

Return – start to live as the kind of person God wants you to be

In summary, a bible verse which I suggested at the time might be helpful to keep in mind in terms of ‘who God call us to be’ is Galatians 5v22-23: “²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

With my prayers for May, 4 years on from Covid, when I hope you can take a little time to reflect and remember the lessons of the Covid time.

Revd James Hunt – Rector St Peter’s Bishop’s Waltham with Blessed Mary, Upham