Let’s NOT Go Back to Normal

I opened an email survey from my health provider a few weeks ago. It was about fifteen screens in length and asked Covid-19 related questions. Questions such as, what would make it safe for you to return to our office? And it listed some options with a bubble in front of each. Choices included “everyone wears a mask.” “Only people without coughs can be in the waiting room.” You get it. About half way through the survey a question read, “How soon do you think it will take to get back to normal?” And the answers ranged from weeks to one year.

I sat and stared at the question.

Questions are linear and I often have difficulties with them as I feel boxed in and want to re-write the question so I can answer it. And I wanted to do this with this one. What the heck does “normal” mean and why would we ever in a Progressive Universe want to regress to something “normal”?

I sat stunned.

God can really use anything to get my attention. I could see a Spiritual Saturday Night Live Skit in my mind over this one. Or the Twilight Zone. One little question hit me upside the head and had me screaming at my computer screen as though it were a last quarter, last play of a Seahawk game.

Really? Normal?

The cloistered time of Covid-19 has changed me. It has ripened me. I committed to myself on the front end of The Cloister that I would NOT be the same person coming out. I am a visionary. I have wanted a new world and a new way of being for along time. My Soul came here for this. All Light workers and God Lovers came here for this. We have watched old, outdated structures crumbling for decades right in front of us. We have spoken to what hasn’t worked. We have written letters to organizations suggesting different or better ways to connect with customers. We have marched, if not on the streets in our heads. We have felt our cosmic clothing becoming too small for us and we’ve wanted a new outfit. Now is the time. A new is beckoning us to step forward. How do we engage in with this new?

Here are some ways.

Whatever you do, add The Emergence of the New into the mix. If you are a writer, plant a few seeds or come right out with an orchard of an article/blog/book. Write of the new you see emerging or you desire to emerge.

If you are in the media, show us stories of changes that we can love and embrace. Not the restrictive stories; we have way too many of those. You know, the heart stories. The new ways we’ve found to connect with each other and the inventions that are being created during this time. Ingenuity is inspiring.

If you are an organizational leader, speak to your management team about vision and ask questions about becoming. For example, a good question to ask your team is “What as an organization do we want to become?” Pliability and permission to try something new is at an all time heightened state. Put the end user, the customer in the forefront and ask questions of service, safety, connection. Allow what is recreated to be so much better than the same-‘ole.

If you are a coach, you’ve been asking Soul questions for a long time. Speak of the new. Evoke the new. See your client as new. Talk to their higher listening. Ask questions such as, “how will you show up differently now?” “What niggle do you feel which is hard to articulate?”

As a teacher forced to incorporate electronic learning into the classroom, ask yourself and your colleagues how to enrichen and create a new way of educating. Think big. Make your thoughts worthy of your life energy.

And, then in your social life, invite your friends to a “Tell-a-Vision” party. I love this wording. It was coined by Dr. Rev. Michael Beckwith of Agape International Center many years ago. Gather your friends and instead of gossip, complaining, rehashing, speak to The Emergence and tell each other your visions of a future world. What do you know and feel is coming? What do you desire as part of this new birth? Remember, together we are co-creating the world. Words matter. Thought matters. Your life matters.

Somebodies are going to put a stake in the ground and claim the new of our country. Let it be us. Let us create through mind, thought, spoken word and behavior our NEW NORMAL.

• “Will the new normal be created by you?”

Now that is a question on a survey I can answer.

A virtual hug to you,

Reverend Bonnie has a few openings for new prayer session clients. They are an hour in length and cost $150 a session.  If you are interested, email revbonnieb@gmail.com and write in the subject line “Prayer Session.” Bring your vision to the party and we will pray it into being by praying for your becoming.