A few weeks ago, I read a short phrase Challenging our Assumptions. It led me to think about certain things. 

Changing our mindset when we get locked into our own hang ups, and our own modes of thinking. Our reluctance to move away from our patterned lives, or set ways of thinking about the world, and in particular the way we organise our lives. 

I was musing about the topic a bit for a few days and considering how the ability to challenge our assumptions can be difficult. Ideas and ways of operating in life can become so engrained in us that at times it becomes impossible to move outside this secure box we have erected, and think in another way about our lives and where we are going etc.

And then one day shortly after that I woke up and my whole life had changed. And suddenly this topic returned to me, but in a totally new way and from completely new perspectives. I discovered that I was now living in a world where all certainties about normal things such as getting food, going out to work, moving freely wherever we wanted to had changed totally.

Yeats’ poem Easter 1916 came to my mind ‘All changed, changed utterly, a terrible beauty is born’ I was looking out my window and on to a different world. A world that I could no longer take for granted. Where my assumptions about being healthy and alive, being able to walk down my street stress free, able to greet someone, ( and even hug them) were all slowly evaporating. Gone because of the existence of a deadly virus that kills, a hidden enemy that threatened human existence at its core. Overnight life across the five continents had changed dramatically. People were now in fear of their lives and in fear of touching one another in case they became contaminated. 

Ordinary patterns of daily life were now shaken up and threatened. People were no longer able to move around with the freedom and joy that they had experienced for most of their lives. 

I had not intended to write about the corona virus, but let’s face it, it is difficult to ignore it, given that it has dominated our daily life since early on in 2020. And yes, all our assumptions have been challenged and attacked. And yes, we have all been faced with danger, fear, threat, isolation. As I write this blog, I am in this space called ‘Self Isolation,’ Some people I know have told me that they long for a space where they can isolate themselves from people and simply do the things they have always wanted to do but can’t because of the demands of life.

I am afraid that I am not one of those people. I enjoy socialising and going out to work. I enjoy normal life. But yet this particular and peculiar time has to force us all to stop and reflect a bit more on our journey, and about who we are, and what we think, and why we think that way. 

The other day, I heard someone comment rather cynically ‘well you can forget about the rest of 2020, it’s over. Let’s start working on the following year.’

And I thought to myself that’s a pity. Will they be alive in 2021 to carry out their exciting plans? And why should 2020 be gone just like that? Is it not an invitation to change something in our lives and improve. In years to come, when we look back at this time and reflect on how we acted (or didn’t act), it would be sad if we were just to say I got by safely thank God without getting sick. Or thank God that thing is over and gone.

 Maybe it is a time to turn our lives, and our days, and the quality of what we do into gold dust. How? By turning this virus upside down. By turning inwards. Isolation from other people can help us turn inwards and reflect a bit more. Maybe now is the moment to stop and see things about myself and other people, and even my world in a different light. To move into a deeper zone than we normally do. To think outside the box about our lives, and where we are going and why. And why we think in the way we do about important issues in life such as life, death, family, work, relationships. And maybe to get the courage to change.

But we need to ask for it. We can’t do it on our own. Ask for it from God. And if we can’t believe in a God, maybe now is a good time to beg for that belief to take hold of us and root those mindsets that perhaps we have been clutching for too many years. Throw them in the bin.

Maybe we are using these days to declutter the house and do extra cleaning. 

Why not declutter our souls? Declutter our mindsets. Start again with fresh, vigorous steps (even if we are confined to a few kilometres). Jump forward inside. Don’t waste this golden time to turn our souls into a treasure trove. It’s never too late. We can start right now.

 Pope Francis recently said something quite significant- it took a small virus in nature to protect us from our delusions of omnipotence, a small virus to force us face the fact that we are mortal. Good Luck!