Preparation

 If you looked at my previous post (or scroll down to check it out) you'll see that it was about preparedness for adverse circumstances.

Several spiritual leaders and teachers have advised us that we would do well to prepare for times of challenge shortly coming our way. My previous post looked especially at the YouTube videos of Steve and Esther Uppal on this topic. 

I concur. My senses have been on red alert for some while now, and making ready for incoming choppiness has been high on my agenda.

Today I want to add some further thoughts and pointers about the same area of consideration.

Preparing cannot occur in a vacuum. You can't possibly get ready for anything and everything. If you are getting ready for a holiday, you might be sure to pack your bikini and beach sarong, be sure you have some appropriate currency for Spain or the South of France, purchase a dress and high heels suitable for dining out in the evening, and a big shady sunhat. But if you then discover that you're being treated to a hike across Alaska with Bear Grylls, your preparations will have wasted a lot of time and money and be utterly useless.

The spiritual leaders I have seen exhorting us to prepare, typically tell us to "Wake up!" and "Get ready!" We are warned that Something Awful is coming — the problem is that they don't say what; probably because they don't know. Their antennae have correctly detected disruption and radical change, but they don't quite know what it will look like.

Here's a list of what they might be sensing:

• Invasion by foreign nationals
• War overseas resulting in different priorities for our own national budget and recruitment of our resources and personnel
• Economic collapse — banks abruptly shutting, work redundancies, extreme inflation, and that sort of thing
• Particular priorities of government spending that throw the public and private sectors out of balance
• Extreme weather and other influences on nature and agriculture, leading to food shortages
• Power outages for any of a variety of reasons
• Fuel scarcity, leading to rising prices, supply disruptions, loss of agricultural fertiliser and disruption to harvesting machinery etc
• Water scarcity because of extreme weather or pollution or water-hungry industrial plants (eg AI data centres)
• Significant widespread illness
• A chaotic political environment (eg protests and riots) leading to emergency measures disrupting national life
• Changing ideology in our political leadership resulting in unexpected detriment to our existing plans and provisions, or to our habitual patterns of life
• Reduced or interrupted access to services we normally rely on
• Religious or political persecution — this can take a variety of forms, and is sadly prevalent globally, in modern life

That sort of thing. Please feel free to add ideas of your own!!

At the turn of the century, our family had a massive life crash. It was not of my doing, but I needed to take responsibility for the fallout: we lost our family home, all our sources of income, and my marriage abruptly left me. It was tricky. The consequent problems lasted many years, and had a significant impact on my mental health. Fortunately, with a lot of help from my mother and from my ex-father-in-law, we got through. 

Until that point, having grown up in a family with slender means and ambitious aspirations, I knew quite a lot about how to make the money stretch and somehow make things work. From monastic friends and thinking a lot about St Francis, I'd learned how to live simply and frugally, without sacrificing joy and playfulness. 

So I had a good head start; the main thing I needed to do was apply what I'd already learned. What I took away from it all is that there is never any point in worrying: what you thought you had firmly in place can be lost or let you down, but help and hope come from unforeseen avenues.

A man in hard times once expressed to the spiritual teacher Wayne Dyer that he was very anxious about being able to fulfil his obligations and pay his bills. Wayne Dyer asked him if he had always done so until now — he replied that yes, he certainly had. Wayne Dyer said, "Then you always will." I can think of possible circumstances where that might not work out, but I think in general he was right. So the first aspect of preparedness is character. 

Seeing storm clouds gathering on the horizon, over the last few years I have been working on being ready for adversity. Since I don't know quite how it will manifest, I have prepared generally rather than with sharp focus. For instance, if we could be sure that whatever comes means there will be massive food shortages, we might choose to blow our budget on supplies. But what if the challenges mean we have to move to a rented room in another location? If that happens, we'll wish we still had the money and not box upon heavy box of tinned food to transport and store. So rather than prepare a lot for a few challenges, I've prepared a bit for a spread of possibilities. In case it helps focus your own thinking, here is what I've done:

• Where hitherto Tony and I shared accommodation with other family members, we moved to live separately. Each house could take all of us, if that became necessary. In tough times, governments may seize your assets, but generally let you keep your family home — especially if it's unassuming and in a not very special neighbourhood. So we have added to our options for offering sanctuary for other family members, without adding the appearance (or reality) of affluence. Each house has a good-sized garden where we can grow food, and have sunshine and fresh air (this was massively important in 2020). Each house has solar panels and water butts, and one has a wood stove and an open fire and is near places where one can forage for firewood.
• In times of serious disruption, money in the bank often evaporates. Tony and I are growing old. If we had a lot of money to leave behind, it would mostly go in taxes. So we have spent it on making sure our home is in good repair (as prices rise we may not be able to afford to do this later) and cheap to maintain, we have planted our garden with things we can eat, and added the solar panels to our roof and a line of water butts to conserve rainwater. Though we personally don't currently have an electric car, we have added an EV charger to our house, as it extends possibilities for the future, for someone even if not for us.
• We have two portable power banks (these, as it happens) to protect against the impact of power outages.
• We have set aside some modest reserves of food: just very simple things — tinned and potted meat and fish, salt, a few pounds of rice, long life milk and coconut milk and a tub of dried milk, some boxes of dried bone broth sachets, and a big box of oats. With the addition of the herbs growing in the garden and wild edible plants, we'd be OK for about a month. We always have on hand a couple of 10-litre bottles of mineral water, which we collect from a local spring and (for extra health precaution) filter before use. 
• Each day we include a long fasting window (works out at about 9/15 or 8/16 eating/fasting).
• We are careful with grocery shopping, looking for bargains and keeping to a budget — but prioritising food that offers high quality nutrition suitable for our age group; and we have researched this in some depth.
• We have adjusted our stash of clothing to give us a modest and simple wardrobe that is easy to wash, quick to dry, doesn't need ironing, and that layers up or down to keep us warm in winter and cool in summer. We have a laundry line in the garden so we don't have to rely on a tumble dryer.
• We cook using only an air fryer and a hob. We have a spare camping gas hob in case of power outages.
• After much searching we have found a church where the people are friendly and kind and care about us, prioritise prayer and bible study, and know how to build community. They are about to embark on creating a community garden. This church is within walking distance, which motivates us to take extra exercise without the need for equipment or gym membership.
• The last few years we have studied and experimented to improve our health, which was badly dented in 2021 as was the health of so many other people at that time. We have developed strategies to optimise our health without needing to be rich or to rely heavily on support from our compromised and struggling national health service. We do rely on particular inexpensive supplements, without which we struggle, and we make sure to always have in good supplies of these in case there are shortages.
• We have divested ourselves of all the possessions we considered to be surplus to basic everyday needs and likely requirements for hospitality. We now have very little stuff and very few treasures. We could easily relocate or downsize, and our house is very easy to keep clean and tidy.
• Both our requirements and commitments are few, and our life is as frugal as we can manage. We do run a car, but are careful about how much we use it, and it is the only vehicle for 3 of our 4 family households in this town.
• We keep a small amount of ready cash on hand, just in case electronic methods of payment unexpectedly fail us.
• We aim to be as inconspicuous, insignificant and unimportant as it is possible to be. The politics of envy would find no foothold in our life. We have no financial debts.
• Every morning we pray together, and we orientate our lives around the presence and power and peace of God as we know him in Jesus.
• We value — and do our best to prioritise, consolidate and increase — a robust network of family, neighbourly and church community relationships. Several years of illness bringing isolation, the times we're in, and difficult fluke experiences with church have set us back, but we have kept at it, repeatedly rebuilding.

Those are the ways we — who are elderly, have impaired health, and have small financial resources and almost no influence or power or connections — have done our best to create a stable and resilient life.

I'm not quite sure what preparedness would look like, in the minds of spiritual leaders who urge us to wake up and to prepare. I expect there may be gaps in our own preparation, but at the same time I think it is as unwise to obsess anxiously about being prepared as it is to neglect the issue — because optimism, a relaxed body, a calm routine, a peaceful mind and a habit of joy, taking delight in loveliness found with life's ordinary circumstances, are integral to facing adversity without falling apart. 

So I hope we have done enough to get ready for whatever the future may bring, and I'd be very interested to read your own thoughts on this topic.