The Inexhaustible Power of Normal

Every era has its signature mood. Ours is agitation. People wake up already braced for the next headline, the next argument, the next moment of civic whiplash. The pace of political life has become so relentless that many Americans now live in a state of low‑grade emotional exhaustion. They’re not disengaged — far from it. They protest, they post, they argue. But beneath the activity is a quiet plea: Can life please feel normal again?

Normalcy is one of the most underrated forces in human affairs. We tend to dismiss it as mediocrity, as the domain of the unambitious. But normal is not the absence of meaning; it is the precondition for it. Normal is the set of stable expectations that allow people to build families, pursue work, and form communities. It’s the scaffolding that lets us live without constantly scanning the horizon for the next disruption.

I was reminded of this years ago, on a Sunday morning in Salem, Oregon. I walked out of church and saw what looked like a dusting of snow on the cars and rooftops. It wasn’t snow. It was ash from Mt. St. Helens, which had erupted that morning. The familiar world had been interrupted.

When I pulled into my driveway, my neighbor came running out. “Don’t wash your car!” she shouted. The ash, she explained, would scrape the finish. Then she handed me a simple mixture of vinegar and water — a homemade solution to a problem that had felt overwhelming only minutes earlier. Even in the middle of a volcanic eruption, the instinct toward normalcy was already reasserting itself. A neighbor helping a neighbor. A small act of competence and care. A reminder that life could still be navigated.

Spirit Lake and Mt. St. Helens

Spirit Lake, not far from where that ash fell, offers the same lesson on a grander scale. After the eruption, the lake was declared biologically dead. Ash smothered the water. Debris choked the surface. Scientists predicted it would take generations to recover.

But nature has its own quiet stubbornness. Left alone, the lake began to heal. Microbes returned. Plants took root. Fish reappeared. What looked like permanent devastation turned out to be temporary disruption. Life has a way of knitting itself back together.

Human communities behave much the same way. We go through periods of upheaval — political, cultural, relational — and in the moment they feel epochal. But beneath the noise, the deeper human instincts continue their patient work: the desire for stability, for mutual regard, for the ordinary rituals that make life livable.

I saw this recently in a friendship of mine. A friend and I found ourselves on opposite sides of a political conversation. We exchanged messages — polite, but with that unmistakable undertone of “you’re missing something essential.” After his last reply, I decided to wait a day before responding.

The next morning, I remembered it was his birthday. So I wrote, not to continue the debate, but simply to say I was glad he was on the planet and hoped he had a wonderful day. He wrote back to thank me and told me I was an important friend to him.

The disagreement didn’t vanish. But the tension did. Something sturdier surfaced — the quiet normal of friendship, the recognition that affection outlasts argument. Even in the midst of disruption, the deeper currents were still flowing.

Some people argue that normal is subjective, that one person’s normal is another person’s oppression. But that confuses preference with structure. People may want different things, but the conditions that allow human beings to flourish are remarkably consistent: safety, predictability, workable routines, and the absence of coercive extremes. These aren’t partisan values. They’re anthropological ones.

And for those who look toward Easter, there is an even deeper reassurance. The Christian story is not one in which disruption triumphs, but one in which life quietly, inexhaustibly returns. Jesus restores health. He restores clarity. He restores the assurance of being loved. Easter is the great declaration that devastation is never the final word.

Normal is not weakness. It is not complacency. It is the slow, patient work of life reasserting itself after the ash has settled. It is Spirit Lake finding its way back to clarity. It is a neighbor with a vinegar solution. It is a birthday message in the middle of an argument. It is the human heart remembering what it needs in order to flourish.

And it is inexhaustible. Whatever eruptions may come — and they will come — the pull toward normal will outlast them. It always has.