Reflection
Isolation is the oldest and most tested way to prevent the spread of a disease. In the Middle Ages in Europe whole cities were quarantined to prevent the spread of the plague. It is vital that as far as possible we practice social distancing. But rather than any sense of isolation is the knowing that we are all in this together, that it is part of our shared journey together with each other and with the Earth. And the power of our love can serve as a balance to the darkness of fear, to the forces that can so easily contract us.
And in the strength of our love and our shared journey we can use this crisis as an opportunity, a moment to step back from the daily demands, the busyness of our outer life. With so many stores and businesses closed, we experience our life reduced to what is essential, and when this pandemic is over, can we continue with a voluntary simplicity, no longer caught in the addictions of consumerism? We can recognize that the Earth is sending us a message, that it is out of balance and needs our love and care and attention. We are all part of one interdependent living being, ancient beyond our understanding.
We can no longer afford to pollute it with our ceaseless desires, filling the air with carbon emissions, the oceans with plastic.
Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Prayer
May all be one.
Action
Think of what you are experiencing. Do you have a sense that we are all journeying through this together? How have you had to simplify your life? Is this an annoyance for you or an insight? Will you be different after this emergency time passes? Do you want to be? What choices will you make?
Suggested Reading
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
John 13:34
The future is, most of all, in the hands of those people who recognize the other as a “you” and themselves as part of an ”us”. We all need each other.
Pope Francis
We are one, after all, you and I, together we suffer, together exist and forever will recreate each other.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Love will remind us that we are a part of life – that we belong to each other and to this living, suffering planet.
Llewellyn Vaughn-Lee
We are intimately interconnected with nature, whether we like it or not. If we don’t take care of nature, we can’t take care of ourselves.
Inger Anderson
What divides us pales in comparison to what unites us.
Ted Kennedy
Let’s look at this coronavirus pandemic as a wake-up call as we unite to better serve each other and our planet.
Devorah Kur
That is America. Those bonds of affection; that common creed. We don’t fear the future; we shape it. We embrace it, as one people, stronger together than we are on our own.
Barack Obama
Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
More than ever before in human history, we share a common destiny. We can master it only if we face it together.
Kofi Annan
The coronavirus will not reverse the ravages of climate change, and it will not interrupt our progression toward an even more desperate future. But it is allowing us to see with our own eyes how ready the natural world stands to reclaim the planet we have trashed, how eagerly and how swiftly it will rebound if we give it a chance.
Margaret Renkl