gardening, sunshine, grieving and reality in this season of contagion...

Ah, joy of joys: I got to spend an hour outside in the cool sunshine raking leaves! Its past time to take stock of the garden terrace so this morning was joy upon joy. Last year, when I built our first two terraces and stone walk, it was all beginner's mind - with lots of time spent learning, unlearning, and rebuilding. It was also the first year in thirteen that I took the time to get to know the land with which we share a home. I cut back the bramble and grapevine to reclaim 10 feet of soil. I used cast off wood from our deck repairs to fashion our vegetable terraces. And Di reclaimed the land's accent rocks and stone walkways that wind through the trees and flowers.

The wetlands now hosts traces of red and green among its browns and grays. The red wing blackbirds have returned with the sounds of spring. So when poppa cardinal glides through the brush, the whole earth cries, "Glory!" as George MacLeod, late of the Iona Community, used to pray. My heart moves to the poetry of ancient Israel when the post-exilic Isaiah sings:

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
and do not return there until they have watered the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and succeed in the thing for which I sent it...

You shall go out in joy,
and be led back in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
shall burst into song,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;
instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;
and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial,
for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

Upon inspecting my handiwork experiments from last year today I find that the earth has shifted and taken down parts of the terrace walls. Over the weekend I will get rebar supports to secure the blocks - and probably a few trellises and cedar planks, too. Despite the prediction for three days of rain, I am hoping to find time each day this week to take stock of the land and get ready for a new season of planting, learning, watching, waiting and celebrating the gift of life that continues beyond the contagion. From all I read, and I only do so sparingly, we're likely to be in this self-quarantine season of solidarity in solitude intermittently for up to two more years. I pray that in those days, there will be time to hold and walk with my grandchildren. And my daughters and their husbands. But I am working on coming to terms with the possibility that this might not be possible. A harsh and exhausting thought, to be sure, but not outside the realm of reality.

An insightful essay in The Atlantic, "Two Errors Our Minds Make When Trying to Grasp the Pandemic" by Arthur Brooks, clarified a spiritual practice that I have intuitively valued as I limit my intake of news. One hour in the evening on PBS and a 15 minute quick review the next morning on The Guardian is all I can muster. Brooks suggests that anything more likely "fuels our fears and negative feelings" in ways that exhaust us. The first error is confusing disappointment with regret. Short version: regret is something we have control over that did not work out; disappointment is something that did not occur but is beyond our jurisdiction and ability. To ruminate "on what you would be doing if it weren’t for the coronavirus" Brooks notes, "is a destructive waste of your time." Same goes for confusing uncertainty with risk. Brooks puts it like this:

I recently checked in on a friend who, like many of us, is “sheltering in place” during the coronavirus epidemic. I asked how she was doing. Not great, she told me. When she wakes up every day, her first thoughts are about what she would have been doing if it weren’t for the virus. Then she spends hours reading and watching everything she can about what the models are projecting and what the experts are saying about the crisis. She confessed that she is frittering away her time thinking about what might have been and what might happen, and ends her days frustrated and exhausted... Why does my friend spend so much time consuming information about the coronavirus? She isn’t a scientist, and doesn’t work on anything related to the pandemic. Still, she visits the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center every day to see if the curve of cases and deaths is flattening. She watches hours of news in which experts are interviewed about the pandemic’s trajectory and when they think life will return to normal... She is making another cognitive error: She is mistaking uncertainty for risk. Uncertainty involves unknown possible outcomes and thus unknowable probabilities. Risk involves known possible outcomes and probabilities that we can estimate. Risk is not especially scary, because it can be managed.

Again, risk is a known reality while uncertainty remains a mystery. To obsess on that which is beyond our ability to influence is like praying for something bad to happen. Brooks says that we create an illusion of authority by watching "24-hour news channels where hosts interview people with only marginally more knowledge than we have. We scour the internet for predictions. We look at the Dow Jones Industrial Average as if it were the zodiac. Surely, we think, if we just knew enough about something, we could accurately assess how much we're at risk." But we don't - and can't. He rationally recommends what those who practice contemplative prayer experience: letting go over what might have taken place so that we can be grounded in reality now.

Disappointment and uncertainty are inevitable, but we don’t have to turn them into suffering. Ruminating over what might have been and what might happen will reliably deliver unhappiness. If you practice eliminating these mental errors during the pandemic, you’ll be happier today, and better equipped to deal with the hard parts of ordinary life, whenever it resumes. (For the whole article, please go to: https://

www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/04/how-stay-calm-during-pandemic/610390/)

We can - and must - still grieve. Whenever massive change confronts us - of our own making or not - the emptiness calls out to be honored. But grieving is cleansing while obsession merely fills us with destructive emotions that are wearisome and deflating. To be out in the sun - and the soil - was restorative to me. It was like living into the Serenity Prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.  Now it is time for one of our Skype calls with the Brooklyn clan. I cannot hold my loved ones, but I can see them and talk with them and laugh and weep with them. And, for today, that must be enough.