Here we are on St. Patrick's Day, in the middle of the season of Lent, living during a pandemic. Now that I have done all I can do in preparation for what might come, many thoughts bounce around my head. They are random in many ways, but also connect to the current times and spread of Covid-19. As a historian by training, and novelist, I have felt for weeks this virus would turn into a pandemic and spread. Unfortunately, what I believed would happen has (though I have been surrounded by those who don't think the virus is much of an issue).
One thought that reached my mind was of the Titantic. When it hit the iceberg, and a few feared it may go down, they prepared life boats. Not many people were willing to listen and get in at that time. After a bit more time passed, a few more saw the wisdom of getting in a life boat. By the time most people realized the ship was truly sinking, it was too late and they drowned. I'm in the first life boat. That's just who I am.
Secondly, I've been pondering how one of the priests at my church talked on Ash Wednesday about Lent being a time to grow closer to God, to remove from your life what is keeping you away from God. Now that I have chosen to eliminate all extra out of the house activities, and the world has slowed, I wonder if one of the positives to look for in this time of forced stillness is a space to be closer to the Creator.
Last night I pulled a book off my shelf I had read in college and kept. Now seems to the right time to read it again. The first chapter, in several ways, connected to and helped explain the spread of diseases and how pandemics occur, and have done so throughout history. The book is The Black Death: Natural and Human Disaster in Medieval Europe by Robert S. Gottfried. For years I have referenced ideas from it in conversations I have had, as many of the facts written among its pages awoken and expanded the thoughts of my young mind.
Take care of yourself. Use some of this stillness to reflect on what is important to you.
One thought that reached my mind was of the Titantic. When it hit the iceberg, and a few feared it may go down, they prepared life boats. Not many people were willing to listen and get in at that time. After a bit more time passed, a few more saw the wisdom of getting in a life boat. By the time most people realized the ship was truly sinking, it was too late and they drowned. I'm in the first life boat. That's just who I am.
Secondly, I've been pondering how one of the priests at my church talked on Ash Wednesday about Lent being a time to grow closer to God, to remove from your life what is keeping you away from God. Now that I have chosen to eliminate all extra out of the house activities, and the world has slowed, I wonder if one of the positives to look for in this time of forced stillness is a space to be closer to the Creator.
Last night I pulled a book off my shelf I had read in college and kept. Now seems to the right time to read it again. The first chapter, in several ways, connected to and helped explain the spread of diseases and how pandemics occur, and have done so throughout history. The book is The Black Death: Natural and Human Disaster in Medieval Europe by Robert S. Gottfried. For years I have referenced ideas from it in conversations I have had, as many of the facts written among its pages awoken and expanded the thoughts of my young mind.
Take care of yourself. Use some of this stillness to reflect on what is important to you.
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