It’s a bit ironic that a crisis can bring out either the best or the worst in people. What will it be for you? Read my thoughts in this week’s edition of “Isn’t That Ironic?”.
This virus is a global challenge and requires global cooperation.
Will this pandemic crisis bring out the best or the worst in each one of us? That’s a choice we make both individually and collectively. You can choose to respond with anger, frustration, blaming, victimhood, etc. Or you can choose to respond with love, gratitude (yes, look for the good and be grateful for it). Every crisis is a sort of test or trial. Will it be for our rising or our falling? Will we progress or regress? Will we respond from love or from fear?
The spiritual teacher and channel, Gina Lake*, recently sent a message of hope that I found so helpful I am quoting from it extensively this week.
“As with any challenge, this pandemic offers an enormous opportunity for spiritual growth. Challenges bring out the best in most people, although the opposite can also be true. That is always a choice. You will either suffer terribly during a crisis or you will find the love, strength, courage, compassion, gratitude, and acceptance within yourself and come out a better person. In a challenge, either people find ways to cope positively and come through it well, in other words, they develop spiritually, or they do not and therefore suffer greatly.
Each of you is up against a wall, and you must choose what it will be. Will you choose fear, victimhood, or anger or will you choose love, kindness, generosity, compassion, and acceptance? This is, of course, the same choice that you have in every moment of your life; it just becomes more important now to make the right choice for your own good and to help others suffer less as well.
Collectively, much good can come of this challenge and every challenge, just as in your individual lives. So, let us look at the silver lining of this experience. There are so many possible ways your world can change for the better as a result of this pandemic, many of which could not or would not have come about any other way. First, you discover the importance of a competent government that speaks the truth and gives the facts and is prepared and willing to help all people equally as best it can. There is strength in numbers, and this is why you have government—so that you can share burdens and resources across the cities, states, and economic divides.
In a crisis situation, it is easy to see how much you love each other, how much you need each other, how interconnected you are, and how important everyone is in keeping society functioning. Many of the lowest-paid and least desirable jobs are the most essential to the functioning and well-being of society. All people are important, valuable, and deserve respect and adequate compensation.
Second, such a crisis helps you get your priorities and values straight: Is how you look, what you drive, getting that dream house, climbing the ladder of success, and so on that important? So many of you are so well off that you are out of touch with what really matters and out of touch with the suffering others are experiencing and feel little obligation to do anything about that. This crisis will change that for some, as you more acutely see that you are and need to be “your brother’s keeper,” not just be looking out for yourselves and your family. “What you do to the least of my brethren, you do to me.” You are all in this together. You belong to the family of humankind.
How have you helped someone in need during these difficult times?
Your world needs to come together as one world. This virus is global and requires global cooperation and sharing of information and care. If you don’t help each other, then the most vulnerable of you will continue to spread this virus. Everyone in the world needs help with this pandemic. This requires a global initiative.
…This is a time for being strong and positive within yourselves, for being loving and compassionate. Anything that undermines your ability to be kind, compassionate, and generous is not worthy of your time and energy.”
Great words! It's ironic, but maybe this pandemic is just what we needed. Let's take this opportunity to make our world a better place. Let’s use our time and energy only for what is kind, compassionate, and generous.
God Bless You!
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*See, Gina Lake on her website, https://www.radicalhappiness.com/transmissions/message-for-the-week. She refreshes the material here regularly so I can’t say how long this particular material will remain on her website.
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