Five Minute Friday: NORMAL

Today I'm linking up with the Five Minute Friday community, writing for five minutes on a given prompt. 

This week's word is NORMAL.

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Two months into the Covid-19 pandemic shutdown, it feels like normal has taken on a whole new meaning. Back at the beginning of March we could hardly have imagined the things we wouldn't be doing: getting together with friends and relatives for birthdays and holidays or just a quick visit, going to school and church and camp, going out for coffee or lunch, gearing up for summer sports or travel. 

And we could hardly have imagined the things we would be doing: waiting in line outside a grocery store till the staff let us in, dropping off a package of yeast at the home of someone we've never met, asking neighbours for toilet paper, cutting our own hair. (Yes, I have been doing this, and so far it's working!) 

So it's a new normal -- but for us it has been a pretty manageable one, overall. Richard still works the same number of shifts; I'm still doing my online course work; Allison is finding it a bit tedious but not hugely disruptive; Jonathan's missing his structured activities but coping amazingly well for the most part. We are fortunate. 

But so many others have been hard-hit by this crisis: people who have lost loved ones to the virus and couldn't be with them when they died or honour them with a funeral; who have lost their jobs due to cutbacks; who have no choice but to go to work in high-risk settings; whose well-being was already precarious because of homelessness, poverty, or mental or physical illness.

And millions of people in the world were already living with the kinds of restrictions many of us are now lamenting as "deprivations," like empty store shelves, lineups for basic activities, lack of access to school and cultural activities. We're getting a very small taste of what normal looks like for the less privileged worldwide.

One great thing about these Five Minute Friday linkups is that they give us an opportunity to see the wide variety of ways people experience, interpret, and write about the same word. And the Covid-19 pandemic is giving us an opportunity to see what our definition of normal really is and whether it's worth preserving or needs to change.

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Five Minute Friday: ANOTHER

Today I'm linking up with Five Minute Friday, writing for five minutes on a given prompt.

This week's word is ANOTHER.

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I don't know if you know this, but sometimes kids do things for no apparent reason. About ten days ago my son did one of those for-no-reason things (at least he didn't divulge a reason). When no one else was in the room, he went to the window ledge where I keep several house plants, and he ripped both of my shamrock (oxalis) plants, a purple one and a green one, out of the soil and dropped all the stems and leaves down behind the couch. He didn't touch the other plants, just the shamrocks. All that was left of the green one was soil; all that was left of the purple one was a couple of little shoots.

I cleaned up the mess, watered the soil in both pots, and basically neglected them for the next ten days (which is pretty much my usual method of caring for plants).

Ten days later, the purple shamrock looks like this:

Shamrocks are so resilient: even after what seems like total destruction, they bounce back quickly, grow like mad, and bloom enthusiastically and often. They just need another chance.

Part of me wants to rush to some quick parallel like "God is all about second chances!" or "Easter shows us that there is always another chance for new life!" or "Spring is nature's way of giving everything another chance!"

But in this difficult season, with our lives so disrupted by the Covid-19 lockdown and the reality of so many people sick and dying from the virus, I find it harder to make that leap. Some people didn't get another chance to speak to their loved one before they died. It's heartbreaking.

So I won't end with comforting cliches. I'll just look at my shamrock whenever I need another glimpse of hope, another reminder to wait and trust through difficult days.

Quick Lit: three good novels for a time of social distancing

I haven't linked up with Modern Mrs. Darcy for "Quick Lit" in a long time. But right now, with the coronavirus pandemic causing the cancellation of activities and the need to distance ourselves from others to prevent the spread, there really isn't a better time to read. Not that there is ever a bad time to read...

So if you're looking for some good fiction to get you through the next few weeks, here are the three novels I've read this year so far. BONUS: they are all by Canadian novelists!

(I'll do another post for nonfiction another day, just to spread things out.)

The Difference by Marina Endicott.
I may as well start with the best. The Difference (to be released in the US in a couple of months under the title The Voyage of the Morning Light) is one of the best novels I've read in a long time, maybe ever. Set in 1911, it is about a young girl named Kay who joins her older sister Thea and Thea's husband, the captain of a merchant ship, on a voyage from Nova Scotia to the far east. Kay has nightmares about a traumatic time she and Thea lived through in western Canada where, we come to find out, their father was head of a native residential school. Then an encounter with a boy on a small island in Micronesia changes all their lives, deepening Kay's questions about God, forgiveness, and the differences between people and between all creatures. The descriptions and settings are breathtaking, and the characters are unforgettable. The only negative thing about this book was that it had to end.

Five Wives by Joan Thomas.
Another great novel. This is a fictionalized account of the real-life story of five American missionaries (the best-known being Jim Elliot) who were killed by members of the Waorani people in Ecuador in 1956. Thomas imagines the events up to, including, and after the missionaries' deaths from the points of view of their wives; she also includes modern-day episodes about some of the missionaries' children and grandchildren (these parts are completely made-up, with invented names, etc.) and how these later generations reflect on the true impact the missionaries had in the lives of the Waorani. This novel really makes you think hard about Christian missionary efforts and the choices people make in the name of doing God's will. So good.

The Gown by Jennifer Robson.
My daughter Allison, knowing my great interest in The Crown television series, thoughtfully chose this book for me as a Christmas gift. It is a lovely novel about two young women, one English (Ann) and one French (Miriam), in postwar London. They work as embroiderers and are, to their great excitement, tasked with doing embroidery for Princess Elizabeth's wedding dress. The story is told from the perspectives of both women as well as that of Ann's granddaughter, who receives some pieces of embroidery when her grandmother dies and who goes to London to try to find out more about Ann's early life. If you like Kate Morton's novels, you'll probably like this one.

Five Minute Friday: LESS

Today I'm linking up with Five Minute Friday, writing for five minutes on a given prompt. This week's word is LESS.

(Last week I wrote my FMF post about an episode from the Gospels, so I thought I'd do the same here. There is so much to unpack in the stories of Jesus!)

In Luke 21:1-4 we read,

Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury box. He also saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. He said, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all offered their gifts out of their wealth. But she, out of her poverty, put in everything she had to live on.”

<sup>This sounds like an inspiring story of generosity: this poor widow had so much less than the other people there, but proportionally she gave more -- "everything she had to live on" -- so Jesus was praising her for her selfless act and reminding his watchers to give generously of their money too, just as she was doing.

But it may be that Jesus wasn't holding her up as an example at all. Instead, he may have been commenting on how this woman was the victim of an unfair and demoralizing system. Quite likely she felt she had no choice but to give to the temple treasury; the religious leaders probably had her convinced that it was her duty. After all, in the verses right before this scene, at the end of chapter 20, Jesus is harshly critical of the religious leaders who "devour widows' houses." And if she was so poor that her small contribution left her penniless, why weren't the religious leaders helping her out?

This probably isn't a "God loves a cheerful giver" feel-good story. It's a reminder that God isn't pleased when those in power take advantage of those who have less, making them feel obliged to perform pious acts without helping them when they need it most.</sup> 

Five Minute Friday: SACRIFICE

Today I'm linking up with the Five Minute Friday community, writing for five minutes on a given prompt. 

The word this week is SACRIFICE.

free image vectorstock.com

I've been a parent for over 21 years, and I hope I don't sound like I'm looking for a Nobel Prize when I say that parenting involves a lot of sacrifice. Parenting may require us to sacrifice time, privacy, peace and quiet, plans, a clean tidy house ... oh, and sleep. A lot of sleep.

As a child I took very little conscious notice of the sacrifices my parents made for me and my brothers. They weren't passive-aggressive "Why aren't you grateful for all I've done for you!" types, so I never felt the weight of guilt or shame that we kids were preventing them from enjoying the life they might otherwise have had if they hadn't been parents.

We were their life. I know that now. Maybe it's because I'm a parent, or maybe it's just because I've grown up and can see the extent to which they sacrificed in great and small ways for our happiness.

That's what this poem of mine, "On whom his favour rests," tries to capture: the spirit of sacrifice that comes from a heart of love.

On whom his favour rests

We watched from the kitchen window as Dad plunged down

the lane through knee-deep snow, flashlight beam bobbing

ahead, to start the truck. Exhaust plumed round the red

tail lights, and soft snow flurried as he brushed off the hood

and windshield. Afterward, he walked back to the barn to hitch

the horse to the sleigh, then drove it to the door for Mom

and the boys and me to climb on. We sat on bales he’d placed

on the sleigh bottom, and held tight for the lurching ride

down the lane to where the truck sat running. While we waited

in the warm cab, he returned the sleigh to the barn, tied up the horse,

and came back to the truck at last. At the time, we were so impatient:

it was Christmas concert night, and we wanted to be at the church

already, to shrug out of our coats, don angel wings or

shepherd’s robes, and act out the greatest story again. Yet

now what I think of when I recall that night is not my lines

or cues, or even the news of great joy, but the whickering sound

of the horse’s breaths, the creak of wooden shafts on leather harness,

how the stars swung shivering overhead, and how my father

did without complaint all he could to give us those times of wonder

and bring all the peace on earth our hearts could hold.