Fr Robert Hendrickson

Dear Friends in Christ,

Like every family at some point or another, we are in the process of trying to figure out a new normal—for the fall in particular.

As Karrie looks at positions each comes with different hours and demands. We’ve built our life for the last decade plus on her working from home on east coast time. It has enabled us to homeschool and to provide for some unique challenges that come with special needs child raising.

Now we’re looking for a new normal. The chances of another remote position are slim so everything is now being reshuffled.

It’s not an unusual circumstance. Everyone has periods where they look at some new disruption and can’t get their minds around what the change means.

This was the Church’s challenge during that period between Easter and Pentecost.

People had seen Jesus return. They had seen him do miracles. They had seen him preach, teach, and heal. They had seen him cast out demons. But now he was telling them that, once again, he would be leaving.

Just when things had gotten disrupted at the Cross and then again by the empty tomb they were going to have to figure it all out again. Another disruption was coming. But it was the one in which all that they had seen happen was now theirs to do.

They were not being called to watch Jesus do the work—that had come to seem almost normal. They were being called to preach, teach, heal, cast out demons, and more themselves. The new normal was the true call even though it seemed so profoundly disruptive.

And it was.

And it should be.

The Christian call is always disruptive. When we hear it freshly it breaks open our old ways of doing things. It undoes our habitual waiting on God to do the hard things. We realize that the disruption is the call.

So as we look for a new normal we’re also trying to hear the call in it. What old patterns is God letting fall away so something new can emerge? What habits need to be let go so we can pick up some new way of living, serving, and growing in faith?

I don’t know. There’s a new normal coming, though. It will be disruptive. Maybe that’s how it should be? That’s where faith and hope come in.

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Robert