730 things — Day 109 of 365

The times we're passing through are characterised by quite astonishing levels of deconstruction.

To revel in a mixed metaphor — the tree is being shaken until its teeth rattle.

Every now and then I come across someone who nonchalantly asserts that the Covid season hasn't made any significant impact on them — they've been fine, it hasn't made much difference really — and I wonder what planet they've been on.

My understanding is that the pandemic has been a symptom rather than a cause, part of a bigger picture, a transformative wave of epic proportions. It's been a time of reckoning, when we've watched all kinds of things we were used to, and relied on, dismantled. We've watched them crumble, evaporate, die. So many people have died — and people's pets as well, beloved friends — connections have frayed and lost hold, long established organisations have given way, relationships have dissolved, those in positions of power have proved to be hollow, sham, corrupt and toxic. Revered institutions whose rationale has always made sense began to look first irrelevant and finally redundant as the world around them and in dialogue with them underwent massive and radical change. In the personal sphere — health, friendships, family life, work patterns and possibilities, affiliations of every kind — everything has demanded thoroughgoing reappraisal; and on the way through, we have lost so much. Meanwhile truth makes its way to the surface and insists on being heard, even while it is beaten back, beaten down, over and over again by the corrupt and bankrupt forces of self-interest.

It is a phenomenal and daunting time to be alive.

In such times — passing through the Valley of Baca — I have found (personally anyway, it may be different for you) it helps to live simply, keep endeavours small, travel light. The fewer attachments, the less there is to demolish and the less fraught it feels to get to your feet again and keep going.

"Having done all, to stand" was a Bible quotation beloved of my prayer partner Margery — a concept she came back to repeatedly and depicted in various forms — stained glass, banners, greetings cards: "Having done all, to stand," taken from the passage about the armour of God in the letter to the Ephesians. It is an image of something remarkably battered, but quietly celebrating the courage of resilience and perseverance. It's one of the springs in the Valley of Baca for these times. Meanwhile, this is not a season to clutch or hold on to anything, but to find the inner peace to let things go, let people be what they will be, allow what is inevitable to unfold, just keep on putting into the world what good we can and otherwise let things be.

Today's items to go are some redundant medications. 

This is a perfect example of something that accumulates unnoticed, kept long past its use-by date in case it ever comes in handy. These were no longer needed, so they either went to someone who spoke for them or went in the bin.