Tag: God

Our President placed this country under lockdown as at midnight on Thursday, March 26th.

I am the oldest member of my immediate family, which consists of two children and five grandchildren, living in five different homes within a twenty five kilometer radius of one another.

I have never experienced a ‘lockdown’ before.

I grew up in the latter part of the great war and lived in tough post war times following D-Day. My father and three uncles were part of the war machine. One uncle was killed and thankfully my father and his brother came home to us.

I watched two sons conscripted into the war machine in the ‘80’s. Both came home alive, one was wounded and recovered physically, but never psychologically.

Thankfully my grandchildren have grown, one in his teens, four into their twenties. Two have university degrees and three are on their way; all have good homes.

At the onset of Covid-19, my grandchildren, faced with far greater media hype than I ever experienced, were placed in a situation of doubt and concern; notwithstanding their access to information on the internet and research skills acquired in the course of their education, or maybe, because of this fact.

We parents are faced with both the concerns for our children and the economy of our country; it’s population of fifty seven million souls; six million of which live in our city. We are concerned for our own Small Businesses, the livelihood of which supports our family.

This, in addition to our biggest concern for the potential physical effects of the virus upon our population in a third world country, which could not cope with a pandemic, like say, Italy!

In this country, we have the best government since 1994. Our President and Minister of Finance are very capable men (my opinion). So, from a security and economic perspective we have a small chance.

From the virus viewpoint, where the greater percentage of our people are not familiar with preventative measures that need to be applied and our country having very limited medical resource to cope with the size of our population, “Solum habemus fide in Deum – In God alone we trust.”

From what I can gather, our government, businesses and many responsible people, seemed to have galvanized themselves into action. If my Grandchildren asked me what more could be done to help, I would have to say that, outside of following good hygienic preventative measures and obeying what our government have instructed – nothing.

What I would tell them is: we need to look in another direction. Into that lesser understood place within ourselves. That place from which we receive priceless advice, honest advice, advice we are able to rely on.

In the event of some traumatic event affecting our family, our community, country, the globe, as the Covid-19 we face now, what is our very first turn? To fear. Fear of dying, losing a family member, relative, friends. Fear of lack, of material loss, of unemployment, the list is endless. Then we seek advice from wherever we can source it, reliable or otherwise, after which, we worry, even to the point of illness.

With any catastrophe there are certainly two issues that will arise in it’s wake:

• We can do nothing to change the course of the catastrophe.
• We can do nothing about the (possibly major) changes that will take place in our lives.

We should accept that the only place where we can make decisions affecting our future  is now, in this moment. The past is too late and the ‘future’, in reality, does not exist.

If we refuse to act in this moment now, we will find that our situation, after a night’s sleep, is in the ‘now’ of what we called ‘tomorrow!’

Among the farming and business population of the country in which I was raised, there was a common saying, “Next year will be better.” I left that country eventually, not by choice. The decision I had to make was almost immediate and I realize now that it was made in a moment called now. That ‘now’ was made fifty years ago and I am so grateful, that I made the move, as I have watched that country fall lower than its knees, laid waste by corrupt, greedy politicians.

Consulting our inner selves now and planning as to how we will live our lives, irrespective of what our decisions are, will allow us to navigate from today’s now, onward.

It will allow us to plan ahead, because that is wise; but to plan building our life’s foundations on a solid rock now, not wait for the elusive ‘tomorrow.’

It will allow us to live every moment of our lives in the now, because neither the past nor the future exist – the only time is, now.

We have been given an opportunity of, now twenty days, lockdown. An opportunity to:

• Evaluate our relationships, spiritual and human.
• Evaluate the things for which we need to be grateful.
• Evaluate what is beneficial in our lives now and discard the unprofitable.
• Evaluate what we tolerate and get rid of what’s useless for us to tolerate.

This list is by no means exhaustive.

In this moment NOW we have been offered a window of time to consider, what changes we can make, before changes, over which we have no control, will move in first.

Don’t waste this space pondering on what could happen, just make it happen.

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