Sylvia's Journal

This morning I skipped our Zoom Quaker meeting. A New York Times piece explores whether it is possible to be worshipping and communing with God via your computer screen. No one in their right mind would have asked that question even a short 4 months ago.

Today I didn’t feel like communing with God over Zoom. I have work to do (countless Zoom hours ahead for the next few weeks). It is work that keeps my mind on edge: three consecutive virtual workshops, in French, across 7 time-zones, with a repeat every week for 3 weeks, starting tomorrow. I have worked hard to contain my anxiety. What helped a great deal is that I am paired up with a very knowledgeable facilitator in Madagascar. Our preparations together are reducing both our anxieties. I am actually starting to look forward to our first event tomorrow, rather than dreading it.

Taking a break from the work, and sitting in front of my computer, Axel and I sat in the warm sun, drinking coffee, watching the newly planted Cranberry beans pulling their tiny little heads out of the small peat containers, and practicing our guitar and ukulele chords so we can improvise together. New life, warmth, beauty, harmony are here with us, if you have the ability notice.

At the same time, we cannot forget the global pickle we are in. The front page of the New York Times reminds us of the 100,000 deaths so far in the US by printing names, ages and one liners about the person behind the small entry in this register of deaths: a small sample, one tenth of one percent of all those whose lives were cut short. 

I learned that we cannot hold two thoughts in our mind at the same time (think milliseconds) – but in a slightly longer time span (seconds, minutes, hours, days), may be we can make sure that we don’t forget to notice what’s good, what’s beuatiful and what’s right, and let these inform our actions, for ourselves, our families and our world.