Let us practice true patience and love, trusting God is at work while we wait in the not knowing and become “instruments of God’s peace.” Let us, “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.” Romans 12:12. I concluded my last article with these words of hope of encouragement to practice true patience as we experience the uncertainty of the high-risk moments we are facing in our nation and world today.
Each day I encounter a sinking feeling of helplessness as to how to disrupt the present status quo while practicing true patience. As an elderly person with disabled children, I am already feeling a disconnect between seeing the systems we depend on beginning to fail and extreme frustration that the institutions and people in power are ignoring us, as we pretend everything will remain the same, while we try to carry on life as normal.
I doubt I am the only one feeling this way! The worst thing in the world is to feel you’re the only one. There is a word for that called “Hypernormalization.” Alexei Yurchak used it to describe the experience of life in Soviet Russia. Hypernormalization offers a way to understand what we’re feeling and why. It reassures us that we are not alone as we question our clarity and helps us understand the reality of the truth, clearly paving the way for us to channel that clarity into meaningful action.
Milton Mayer described a similar Hypernormalization in Germany during the rise of the Nazi party.
My husband was a historian with a particular interest in Norwegian history during WWII. Norwegian Pastor Hans Christen Mamen confirmed Larry in 1959. The Mamen’s became close friends. While studying at the University of Oslo, we spent a year absorbing Hans’ extraordinary life and wisdom. We learned the importance of encountering movements of hate, violence and misinformation with courage, humanity and unselfishness. He was a seminarian when Nazi Germans took control of Norway. Upon learning of the persecution of Norway’s Jews, disgusted with the inhumane Nazi philosophy and ideology, Hans felt called to protect them. He established a dangerous escape route and a network of others to assist leading Jews safely across the border into Sweden. Hans and his wife, Ruth, escaped via the same dangerous route to Sweden when the Nazis came after him; where Hans assisted the Norwegian resistance by helping Allied agents cross from Sweden into Norway. The Norwegian resistance was non-violent, but a multi-faceted passive resistant movement, with elements of direct actions against the Nazi Occupation.
German Lutheran Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer was known for his staunch, vocal opposition to Nazification and the inability of the German church to distinguish their commitment to Christ from their support of Nazism. As his own death approached from a Nazi prison, he wrote, “It was the essential call of Christian faith: to stand by God in God’s own pain. Not the comfortable God of religious security, but the God who enters humanity’s suffering and asks us to remain awake in that vulnerable space…true Christianity isn’t religious observance, but participation in the sufferings of God in secular life. Faith means not covering up the world’s godlessness with pious religious language, but living honestly in this broken world.
This is not a comfortable faith, but may be the only kind that can sustain us through our personal and collective uncertainties ahead. God is calling us not to be rescued from the world’s suffering but to join God within and become a community of solidarity, friendship, and hope. Meaningful change requires collective awakening. Let us be aware we are not alone in our feelings of uncertainty, as we practice true patience and love, trusting God is at work while we wait in the not knowing and become “instruments of God’s peace.” Let us, “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.” Romans 12:12.
• Laura Rorem is a member of The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. She writes to honor Pastor Larry Rorem’s legacy of love, compassion and understanding for all humankind, especially the most vulnerable. Larry wrote for “Living and Growing for almost three decades. “Living and Growing” is a weekly column written by different authors and submitted by local clergy and spiritual leaders. It appears every Saturday on the Juneau Empire’s Faith page.
