Simple Pleasures of The Good Earth

“And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still. And listened more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met their shadows. And the people began to think differently.” — Kitty O’Meara

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Fragment of a poem by Fr. Richard Hendrick, OFM

March 13th 2020

They say that in Wuhan after so many years of noise

You can hear the birds again.

They say that after just a few weeks of quiet

The sky is no longer thick with fumes

But blue and grey and clear.

They say that in the streets of Assisi

People are singing to each other

across the empty squares,

keeping their windows open

so that those who are alone

may hear the sounds of family around them.

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“It has become necessary for collective humanity to gain a more conscious awareness of the psychological fact that we’re all in this together and that we are all in uncharted territory. That is what the climate crisis says to us and the…