An Uplifting Poem about this Experience

It can be helpful to hear another person’s experience of this time and how they feel about it. Sometimes a different viewpoint can provide an entirely new experience of an event. Sharing positive thoughts, conversations and beliefs can lift a person’s spirit, emotions and even change how they observe and perceive what’s happening around them. Anything that can help us become more thoughtful and observant of our own feelings of distress, allowing us to refocus and commit to a more positive outlook, is definitely a step in the right direction.

The poem below offers a very thoughtful and positive global view of our current joint experience.

 Pandemic
 
   What if you thought of it 
    as the Jews consider the Sabbath — 
   the most sacred of times? 
    Cease from travel. 
   Cease from buying and selling. 
    Give up, just for now,  
   on trying to make the world 
    different than it is.  
   Sing. Pray. Touch only those 
   to whom you commit your life. 
   Center down. 
    . 
   And when your body has become still, 
   reach out with your heart. 
   Know that we are connected 
   in ways that are terrifying and beautiful. 
   (You could hardly deny it now.) 
   Know that our lives  
   are in one another’s hands. 
   (Surely, that has come clear.) 
   Do not reach out your hands. 
   Reach out your heart. 
   Reach out your words. 
   Reach out all the tendrils 
   of compassion that move, invisibly, 
   where we cannot touch. 
   . 
   Promise this world your love — 
   for better or for worse, 
   in sickness and in health, 
   so long as we all shall live. 
   
— Lynn Ungar 3/11/20  

To learn about the author of this beautiful poem, visit the Chicago Tribune story written about her: https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/mary-schmich/ct-met-schmich-pandemic-poem-20200314-yywfy7th2nbc5cufvnbb7qhvfm-story.html