Dear friends,
At this time many of us are having to come to terms with changes in our day-to-day activities in response to the challenges presented by the Covid-19 virus.
Our thoughts are with all those people in services and industries who,
For the sake of all of us,
Have to keep working on in what are sometimes the most difficult of circumstances.
Their display of social solidarity is an example to us all and one that's inclined to go unnoticed in more ordinary times.
We owe a deep debt of gratitude to the people whose work helps keep us healthy,
Safe and well fed.
Especially people in frontline services who do not have the gift of being able to work remotely.
A huge thank you to each and every one of them.
In this meditation I want to offer some thoughts for the benefit of another group of people.
Those who have to face the challenge of an unusual degree of person-to-person isolation as we are told by the authorities to try to limit our face-to-face interactions with one another.
To begin,
Let us stop to come into a place of quiet,
For many an unusual place.
This is a place with which the challenge of working to deal with the virus is making us more familiar,
Maybe uneasily more familiar.
So let's make sure we are sitting comfortably.
You might like to close your eyes.
Notice your feet on the floor connecting you to Mother Earth.
Drop the shoulders.
We wriggle them first so you'll notice the difference when you do drop the shoulders.
Take a few deep breaths to help you come into an awareness of the now,
This present and often neglected moment.
And for a few moments,
Relax.
Just relax.
This,
Remember,
Is your time.
Let's give ourselves 60 seconds of calm as we begin.
Let us lead the way.
So here you are in a situation where you have been forced to rest.
What a change that is.
Familiar places closed.
Streets sometimes deserted.
Certainly less busy.
Gatherings of people indoors and out,
Limited in numbers.
Concerts,
Gigs,
Even religious services postponed.
Many people will never have seen the likes of this.
John Bon Jovi could have been commenting on the events of these days when he said years ago,
Map out your future but do it in pencil.
How many of us confidently make our plans and set them down not in pencil,
Not even in pen,
But in stone?
How many times have you made plans with no thought that they might ever have to change,
Only to find yourself rudely awakened by the events which life has thrown up in their path?
Let's take another pause for reflection.
60 seconds.
Welcome back.
This meditation is being created in March 2020.
As little as four months ago,
Not one of us had heard of Covid-19.
Today,
This new virus has been found in at least 111 countries.
Such is an indication of our interconnectedness and a reminder that uncertainty is the only matter of which we can be certain.
The Covid-19 virus poses a particular health risk to vulnerable people,
The elderly and those with pre-existing medical conditions.
We have to keep these people in our thoughts.
More particularly,
We need to consider the effect upon such people of any careless or selfish actions on our part.
Each of our actions has an effect on other people.
But now we have to turn to the title of this meditation and the thoughts inspired by the fact of our being forced to rest.
For those of us forced by circumstances to rest,
There are some unexpected silver linings at the edge of this cloud of uncertainty.
You will find days and nights freed up,
Meetings and events cancelled or postponed.
Your first reaction might be one of panic.
But if you stand back and stop,
You may experience a lightness that allows you as never before to rise above the barricade of work and commitments with which you have surrounded yourself.
It's the nature of most of us to fill our time with activities.
And yes,
Often these activities are of great benefit to others as well as ourselves.
Piousness,
Prayer and reflection are wonderful.
But the human world needs to keep turning and for that we need the lubrication of action.
Still,
Our actions can become automatic.
We do things today because we did them yesterday.
Sometimes we never stop to adjust our direction of travel.
This extraordinary event,
Which we are faced with in early 2020,
Is a call to those of us who can stop to stop and examine the direction in which the train of our lives is travelling.
Let's pause again.
Another 60 seconds,
This time to allow us to consider the question,
What am I doing on autopilot?
Welcome back again.
So now that we have had to stop,
We may have made a discovery in relation to our direction of travel.
What am I doing on autopilot?
And more importantly,
Am I happy with that?
The useful exercise is to ask,
If I was only beginning this activity now,
Would I bother to do it at all,
In the light of what I now know?
You may be surprised by the answer.
If your response is no,
Then that personal feedback has told you what you should do.
You should discontinue,
Change direction or do whatever is required.
An enforced time of quiet is also an opportunity to get a handle on some of the plans and projects that you may have left sitting on the back burner for a long time.
I have at least one of these for dusting off myself,
And it includes,
I regret to say,
Some advice about time and procrastination.
How can that be?
But there you go.
So let some good come from any time of enforced rest.
Stopping and thinking is always a valuable use of our limited time.
Margaret J.
Wheatley offers us some useful advice on this when she says,
Thinking is the place where intelligent actions begin.
We pause long enough to look more carefully at a situation,
To see more of its character,
To think about why it's happening,
To notice how it's affecting us and others.
So it is important to notice our actions and the fact that they are affecting us and others.
The poet Lynne Ungar has written a poem for precisely these times.
Pandemic Pandemic What if you thought of it as the Jews considered the Sabbath,
The most sacred of times?
Cease from travel,
Cease from buying and selling,
Give up just for now on trying to make the world different than it is.
Sing,
Pray,
Touch only those to whom you commit your life,
Centre down,
And when your body has become still,
Reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
You could hardly deny it now.
Know that our lives are in one another's hands.
Surely that has come clear.
Do not reach out your hands,
Reach out your heart,
Reach out your words,
Reach out all the tendrils of compassion that move invisibly where we cannot touch.
Promise this world your love,
For better or for worse,
In sickness and in health,
As long as we all shall live.
Words from the poet Lynne Ungar.
Final thought We are all in this situation together.
More than ever before,
We need to watch out for one another.
We all understand in theory that we are all part of the one interdependent web of all existence.
A worldwide medical emergency,
Such as Covid-19,
Reminds us of the reality of our interdependence.
There are people we know who need human contact in a time when we are told we must self-isolate or limit our face-to-face contact.
Lift the phone.
Send an email.
Communicate remotely.
Offer to help,
But above all listen and talk.
In the face of a common threat,
We see example after example,
Inspiring stories of people working together.
This is a reminder of the goodness that lurks deep within each of us.
Sometimes that goodness needs a prompt.
Sometimes it needs more.
Sometimes a pain.
Sometimes a shock.
Even a severe shock to bring it to the surface.
May this Covid-19 situation,
With all the sickness,
Pain and suffering which it involves,
Leave us soon.
And as it leaves,
May its legacy be at least a rediscovery of that innate concern which we all have for one another.
May it lead to the rebirth of a planet-wide willingness of people to work together for the common good,
In good times as well as bad.
Namaste.
