The origin of the words is disputed. But their profound wisdom and insight expresses a timely yearning and hope:
And people stayed home
and read books and listened
and rested and exercised
and made art and played
and learned new ways of being
and stopped and listened deeper
someone prayed
someone danced
someone met their shadow
and people began to think differently
and people healed.
Is it too much to pray that new forms of health should emerge from a world-wide illness? Perhaps. Our most immediate pleas are for the sick, their caregivers, the grieving, the anxious, and those administering positions of public trust. But may we not also append the noble desire that, when at last this crisis ends, we shall better know ourselves as God knows us? The present emergency may push us beyond the boundaries of tribe to the promise of community; from selfish independence to glad cooperation; from shallow values and trivial pursuits to the things that everlastingly matter. If it does, a disease that has wrought havoc and pain may yet sow seeds of life in its wake.