Tsunami, Pandemic, Disaster - Opportunities

Sunday, 24th May, 2020.

We have had three days of strong winds up here on the Tay in Scotland. It dropped for a while last night but has picked up again. I would describe it as a semi gale. Branches have come down, planted pots have been blown about, potato plant stems broken and the wind has dried out the soil and flowers are drooping. I have just been standing out in it and love the force of nature, the whipped up white horse waves of the Tay, the scurrying clouds and the swaying trees and bushes. A lovely sound also. I feel some cobwebs blown out of my mind and the air feels so fresh and invigorating. The distant wind turbines are humming and revolving happily, the gulls are gliding and swooping and shooting past on its strength...almost playing in the wind. 

So much depends on the attitude one takes to an event, a situation. The lock down is an example: opportunity or interruption or destroyer? 

After streaming Mass from a Cambridge Parish, wherein the priest spoke too long on a sermon and was, in my opinion, positively ill informed re prayer about which he preached ( what do I know?) I moved to the iPad for news and views. As ever my intention was to connect with peoples and events and stories so as to identify and sympathise with them and to share.  Indeed, to pray for them.

Horror stories of people in India walking home to their villages having lost their jobs and dying on the way from hunger and illness. Comments on the trial of Benjamin Netenyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, for corruption. Allegations against Dominic Cummings, the advisor to the British Prime Minister, for breaching lock down rules. Then two short videos. The first of a bionic barman learning to pour beer in Spain. Simply a mechanical arm meaning no distancing necessary, although sadly meaning a human redundant! The second was of two injured manatees having been rescued and healed being released back in to the sea, accompanied by a cheer from the helpers. So many conflicting and contrasting emotions and reactions in myself. Also accompanied by peoples' viewpoints often contradictory of each other. 

Finally the last story I read of the closing down of Stan's Donuts in Los Angeles. A lovely article about how it came in to existence, its owner, its range of styles and flavours and shapes and sizes of the donuts and its demise from the enormous fall in sales during lockdown. Also recollection of some of its Patrons including Elizabeth Taylor and Steve McQueen. A sad yet beautiful story.

The Tsunami of this pandemic is devastatingly destructive. Yet within it there have been constructive moments and action and outcomes also. Like the gale blowing outside my window the pandemic has simply happened out of nature ( maybe our abuse of it.). People have died, people are suffering horrendous hardships as a direct consequence, havoc is happening yet also new life, new growth, new opportunities. Our own attitudes are vital. Attitudes to the suffering, to society, to nature. Do we see it purely as a disaster or do we see it as hellish yet with opportunities? 

We all play a part in this. As I read recently ' one of our greatest freedoms is how we react to things'.

When I put this idea to a friend he replied by email almost instantly.    "Will we help each other, will we be full of criticism and condemnation, will we be part of the solution or part of the problem?"

#tsunami #pandemic #opporrtunities #attitude #posiitive