“This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs.”
– C. S. Lewis, “On Living in an Atomic Age” (1948)
How are you?
What are you doing these days?
In between poring over the paper, we are planting seeds and pulling weeds, painting, singing and (badly) sewing. Cooking. Cycling. Making wind chime #5. There has to be something to do other than camping out on the internet, worrying… Not that it’s easy, of course; these are, as the poet said, “the times that try [our] souls.” But, we’re grateful for the numerous online things to do, from Quarantine Crafts to virtual adventures to virtual evensongs to virtual sing-alongs. We’re grateful that we like each other, and that (when it quits raining) we can go out and enjoy the first moments of Springtime.
“Courage did not come from the need to survive, or from a brute indifference inherited from someone else, but from a driving need for love which no obstacle in this world or the next world will break.”
~ Gabriel Garcia Márquez, from Love in the Time of Cholera
Be well.
2 Replies to ““…sensible, human things””
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What a beautiful quote from C.S. Lewis!
Glad that you have plenty of activities on your homestead. My music school is now loaning me a keyboard so I can teach lessons at home~SUCH a gesture of grace.
Sending love to you and your family from the other side of the map.
Late as usual in catching up here. On the date of posting, we were keeping our distance from one another as much as two people can in one house. He had just returned from a business trip to San Diego and we wondered whether he’d brought “it” back with him. Thankfully, that was not the case, but it was a very long two weeks. Now we are definitely going about those normal aspects of life, seemingly in a vacuum. We feel very far removed from it all in this small corner of the country.