Back to Normal, Sadly

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On Sunday I went to Mass at my parish for the first time in almost a year. Last night I worked out at the gym, which I hadn’t done since the coronavirus pandemic caused social distancing restrictions. On Monday I will attend the Memorial Day Mass at which the bishop will celebrate, and afterward I will join a group of friends for brunch, a tradition that last year we didn’t even consider following. I’ve also scheduled a road trip this summer, and all of this indicates that my life is returning to normal.

This is unfortunate. I was really hoping to see some improvements. One lesson from the pandemic that I’d like to take to heart is that we can’t continue as we did before with our ceaseless consumption, our disregard for others, our selfish use of the earth and its resources. As Pope Francis said during his Sept. 30, 2020 weekly audience, the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the world’s “physical, social and spiritual vulnerabilities” and “laid bare the great inequality that reigns in the world: the inequality of opportunity, of goods, of access to health care, technology, education.”

Now, there’s not much I can do about the inequalities of the world except write my legislative representatives to urge them to enact more just laws, but I can address my own social and spiritual vulnerabilities. I’ve made a start by reading a chapter of the Bible each day, and signing up for a Scripture class, but none of that is addressing my “social and spiritual vulnerabilities,” to use the Holy Father’s phrase.

Case in point is last night at the gym. I’d done my aerobics, stretched, and was two steps away from the last machine of the weight circuit when a young woman slid in front of me, plopped down on the bench and pulled out her phone.

I am pleased that I took a moment to consider my response, and was able to modify my tone of voice to ask nicely, “Are you going to use that machine?”

“Yeah,” she said, barely looking up from the screen of her phone.

And then she just sat there, looking at her phone.

I’m not pleased that I paced in front of her for the minute or more it took her before she actually began to do a set on the machine. Then she sat again, looking at her phone, ignoring me as though it would be a total inconvenience to allow me to work in my own set.

I won’t share the thoughts that went through my head, although in my defense we were in an area set aside for circuit training, and she clearly was using only the one machine, in defiance of the rules, which state if you’re not doing the circuit, you don’t use those particular machines.

My glaring produced no response, so I went muttering to find a weight machine that worked similar muscles. Of which there were several in the a different area of the gym, and none of them in use.

I finished my workout and headed home to dinner, still fuming about the extra three minutes I’d spent at the gym because of that young woman’s inconsiderate actions. I hadn’t driven very far before my irritation toward her turned toward myself. Where in my response was the “culture of closeness and tenderness” that Pope Francis has called for? Was that young woman’s  behavior really worth fretting over? Would the new and improved version of me have lost my emotional equilibrium over such a small matter? Shouldn’t I have taken a page out of St. Therese of Lisieux’s book, and used the moment to respond with great love?

The answers to those questions are, in order: nowhere to be found, no, no and yes, but rather than living a “new normal,” I’m unfortunately simply back to normal, and this is not a good thing.

Marie Mischel is editor of the Intermountain Catholic. Reach her at marie@icatholic.org.