Last night I had quite an ordinary dream.
In it, I was going through the rhythm of what a day used to look like near the end of summer for me. At first, I was dropping the boys off at daycare and camps and going into work for the day. Then the dream shifted and there I was in a crowded Target with my boys looking for uniform shorts that we would need soon. And finally, at the tail end of the dream, I was traveling along the highway in a car on a road trip with colleagues and friends.
And there was not a mask in sight.
I woke up this morning remembering that none of those seemingly ordinary things were on the docket today. Still I tried to cling to them, even laying with my eyes closed trying to grab onto the dream and sit a little longer in that car. It is odd how my best dreams lately are about ordinary moments from an ordinary life not that long ago.
Like many of us, I definitely miss some of the old ordinary. But at the same time I feel, like we all do, the call to step slowly and carefully through these last few weeks of summer. To be slow and intentional about out how we step back into a world that we no longer recognize.
This morning my prayer comes from poet John O’Donohue:
“This is the time to be slow
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes
Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.
If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.”
Time will come good and we all will find our feet soon enough.
In the meantime, let us step slowly forward and hold tight to the moments in the present that bring us joy. God grace us with the ability to see the beauty in what is now instead of what might have been.
And let us care for one another while we figure it all out.
