I was at Kroger yesterday. Shelves were bare. People were racing around. There was a line 90 feet long for the two check-out counters they had open and a dozen self-checkout stations with lines of their own. Pandemic Panic has set in. In the line one woman was telling me she had no spleen (?), another was asking me how I could be calm…”watch the news!” she demanded. (As if I hadn’t been watching the 24/7 coverage of COVID-19.)
Then I got an email from the Community for Contemplation and Justice at my church and it gave voice to all the things I was thinking at the grocery store that day. It was titled “Pandemic” and was written by Lynn Ungar about the step back we are all taking from public outings, staying away from large groups and even self-imposing quarantine. Take a deep breath and read it, enjoy it, then live it. In peace, we can get through this.
What if you thought of it as the Jews consider 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.
Center 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
So long as we all shall live.
Hope that helps,
Nancy
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