Covid-19. Week 3 of self-isolation.

The eagle has no fear of adversity. We need to be like the eagle and have a fearless spirit of the conqueror. Joyce Meyer.

The world feels like it is shut down. There is a stunning stillness to it. It’s amazing when you stop to think about that. Really.

The question we are all facing is how to cope with the NOW and how will we deal with WHAT COMES AFTER, when the world starts up again.

And it will start again. It is just a question of WHEN.

Necessity is the mother of invention. This is the toughest challenge the world community has faced for decades. For the fortunate wealthy few, the Coronavirus will be less onerous. For the population at large, it is a major calamity. Covid-19 will  impact on every aspect of society.

We will all be different when this is over. That’s what happens when a violent change upends the status quo. In the aftermath of the virus, fresh winds will blow, new ideas will bloom and flourish. The younger generation will find a willing audience for its voice.

Over the weekend, a friend of mine who lives in Spain, told me about a shipment of medical supplies that arrived from China. On the outside of the package someone had written: We are oceans apart but we share the same moon.

As I mulled that around in my mind for awhile, I thought about something I had read a long time ago attributed to the late American author and Nobel Laureate, Saul Bellow:

“If you think that historical forces are sending everybody straight to hell you can either go resignedly with the procession or hold out, and hold out not from pride or other personal motives, but from admiration and love for human abilities and powers which, without exaggeration, the words’miarcle’ and ‘sublimity’ can be applied.”

He was right. We will prevail.

Stay safe. Stay connected. Be considerate.

Covid – 19  Week 2 of self-isolation

Yesterday (Sunday, March 22, 2020) I listened to one of my favourite radio programs,  CBC Radio The Sunday Edition, with Michael Enright. It is one of my favourite programs. I have been listening for years.

The opening segment of the program was an extensive interview with a Dr. Sandy Buchman, the president of the Canadian Medical Association. The subject, of course, was the Coronavirus. He covered a broad range of topics and concerns we all have about Covid -19…. and how we are going about tackling the pandemic.

His approach and views on how we are dealing with it were honest, clear, and very informative.

But most of all, and more importantly, it was his compassion and humanity back of the scientific/practical information that came through in his conversation with Michael.

The one word that came to mind as I listened was a sense of reassurance I felt – something everyone of us is seeking, as we begin what is going to be a long, difficult time before it’s all over.

Pour yourself a cup of coffee, settle back and listen.

CMA President says COVID-19 means we need to think not just about healthcare, but pandemic palliative care.

Stay safe. Safe connected. Stay connected.

COVID 19. Self-isolation.

Day 5 for me.

This regime supposedly is only for two weeks…. designed to help ’round off the curve” and make handling the virus less challenging.

We are all in new territory. Constantly washing our hands, staying indoors, taking one day at a time. I have a strong hunch that two weeks is just for openers.

“Solitude,” wrote Thomas Merton, “is not something you must hope for in the future. Rather, it is a deepening of the present, and unless you look for it in the present, you will never find it.”

I think he was right but seeking solitude was something most of us never really had time for. We were all caught up in just keeping up in our crazy 24/7 world.

But that was last week. This is now.

The deepening of the present… finding some much needed quiet time could be just what the doctor ordered.

Hmmm….

Stay cool, be safe, be considerate of others and look after those you love.

It is in the shelter of each other that people live. Irish proverb.

COVID 19.

A few short months ago, with the exception of a few Chinese medical people, no one was even aware of the Coronavirus.

Now everyone in every nation in the world is being affected by it.

We’re just at the initial stages…. coming to grips with this pandemic and it’s far-reaching consequences will take some time…. perhaps longer that we like to even think about, but there it is.

For each of us, for all us, regardless of our station in life, COVID 19 is giving us pause, at a time when humankind desperately needs it.

Hmmm….

It was 1975 before The United Nations made International Women’s Day official and we started celebrating International Women’s Day.

It was a long time in coming. The seeds for the event were planted long ago in 1908, when 15,000 women marched through the streets of New York demanding shorter working hours, better pay and the right to vote.

Gloria Steinem, the world renowned feminist, journalist and activist once explained, “The story of women’s struggle for equality belongs to no single feminist nor to any one organization but to the collective efforts of all who care about human rights.” Later, she went on, “The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn.”

The #MeToo Movement, started in 2006, is just the latest manifestation of the on-going challenge in our society. There is still much work to be done but the fight for equality must never cease.

To quote Mao Zedong, women hold up half the sky.