"Mary treasured all these things in her heart."

                                                                        Luke 2:50

Following is a list of what I have heard about every holiday since Covid-19 ramped up.

-        “It doesn’t feel like Easter.”

-        “It doesn’t feel like Memorial Day.”

-        “It doesn’t feel like July 4^th.”

-        “It doesn’t feel like Labor Day.”

As I’ve thought about that statement – “It doesn’t feel” – I realized that if it was read or heard by someone with only a rudimentary grasp of the English language (or what’s left of it after American’s got a hold of it), it wouldn’t make any sense. After all, “feeling” is associated with the sense of touch. It is having something come in contact with your skin where nerve sensors are. For all of these statements, however, “feeling” has nothing to do with touch at all.

In many cases it does call upon the other senses for that “feeling”. You describe part of that feeling by saying things like; the “taste” of watermelon, the “smell” of hamburgers cooking on a grill, the “sound” of a band marching in a parade, the “sight” of fireworks going off. But those are the other senses, not “feeling”.

How then, can a holiday “feel” like something when it has nothing to do with “touch”.  I think that “feeling” in this sense has more to do with the memory of a time as it relates to the past. And sometimes you can’t describe with words what that feeling is. It’s just a sense that this time it is not like is has been before.

Truth be told, we probably need to get used to “it doesn’t feel like”, because our world will forever be changed by this virus. This year Thanksgiving may not “feel like” Thanksgiving and Christmas may not “feel like” Christmas. But that’s ok. It simply means that we have to create and treasure new “feelings”. We can keep the old memories and “feelings”, but we can make sure our kids have their remembrances of feelings from this time as well.

Memories are the diary we will always carry with us, and they are the special moments that help tell the story of our lives. God gives us this gift and while “you can never go home again” – while things will never be like they were in the past no matter how hard you try to recreate that time – life is still a gift to be lived and treasured.

So, as the kids say . . . “feel me”?

"Father, Thank you for memories. Help us to treasure the new memories this time will bring.  In Jesus' name, AMEN."

Grace,

Rev. Dan