7 May 2020
Dear friends,
It's been some time since I've last written. Though life seems to continue in its new speed, slower and slower, actually much has happened in the past two to three weeks. This past Monday some restrictions were lifted in Italy. We are now allowed to travel anywhere in our county instead of only in our village. The county is our oyster.
This has increased traffic on our road and changes our view, as we now see people on bikes and running and walking. Today we ventured to an outdoor food market about ten kilometres away. We waited in a queue to shop at our favourite organic vegetable stall, a metre separation, gloves and masks on all. By the time we got in the car Ann had RSS – Re-entry Shock Syndrome. That's my name for a reaction to a speedier pace after being used to almost total quiet.
Ann hadn't left the property in over two months and had hardly seen a soul in that time. I go out to the supermarket so I'm a veteran at interaction with strange people dressed in masks. I'm also insensitive enough that I'm somewhat oblivious to what is in front of me.
But the biggest change for us is that for the last two Saturdays we had a sevadar here to cut the grass. Though only half-finished it is a huge change. Starting this Saturday we will have a small maintenance team of five sevadars on both Saturday and Sunday. We aren't able to keep up the maintenance, and the property is starting to revert to some derelict form. We got permission from our mayor to allow this small group to come. They will wear the now-usual costume of masks and gloves and will only work alone instead of in pairs or groups. They will bring their own lunches and eat outside at some distance from one another, drive separately, etc. The joke is that we wear our masks and gloves but they aren’t an antidote to karma.
But we will have the first few of our sevadar family with us and we're both looking forward to it. I just walked around the property and they definitely have enough to keep busy for some weeks.
In my mind this isn’t starting seva again but is an intervention so that when we do start we can begin fresh and clean. I have no idea when we will be able to hold satsang or seva but it is not in the next few weeks. With the beginning of lifting some restrictions, sevadars are now chafing at the bit to start. They all started work again on Monday so they assumed we would also start seva. But we couldn’t get permission and it isn’t practical anyway. The assumption is that there will soon be a spike of cases to prevent the lifting of restrictions. The question is how big it will be.
We have had the first taste of the next crisis, the economic impact on countries. A friend, actually our head of construction, told me that his company has laid off almost 70 percent of its work force. His factory makes auto parts and that segment of the economy has collapsed. We have a few satsangis working there and all have kept their jobs. To me this is evidence of his grace but also the work ethic of satsangis and especially Punjabis. They are hard workers, honest and disciplined, so I hope our sangat will weather this without too much suffering. But we will definitely have some of the sangat without work, which will affect all of us.
I love these Sant Mat coincidences – as I’m writing the last sentence the gentleman about whom I just wrote telephoned to discuss something. So I told him that I had just been writing about him and then read him the paragraph. He laughed but also said something touching. He said that sometimes it is a problem to be honest. The company asks him and other satsangis to do certain work, sometimes sensitive but often physically challenging. They trust him so they go to him. He then said other workers don’t like it that the satsangis work so hard and don’t try to get around the rules.
I have two other friends here who have said that other workers complain about them and to them that they work too hard. It makes the others look bad. I’m going to ramble for a bit so I hope you’ll indulge me.
We have a young woman in our finance department; she is also our best simultaneous translator and gives an excellent satsang in Italian. (Yes, I know I like to praise our sevadars, but again, please indulge me.) She applied for a job in the finance office of a company. They told her she is welcome to apply but unlikely to get the job as they don’t want to train her and then have her go because of maternity leave. They also said she might get married and then move away or stop working. She’s feisty and took this as a challenge. So she applied and listed her skills. They called her in for an interview and proceeded to bring the department head into the interview. He quizzed her on whether she really knew all the things she had listed. They were all part of her normal seva in finance. She got the job.
Then after some months she said the other workers were complaining to her that she works too hard. They asked her to do less. Then the atmosphere soured as they resented her skills and her enthusiasm. After a year she left because of the pressure from her fellow office workers. Disappointing, isn’t it?
But we can’t help being ourselves. The gentleman whom I wrote about earlier just couldn’t be lazy; it isn’t in his nature. He is going to dedicate himself no matter the task. Wish all of us were like that, especially in seva. But we do seva according to our capacity and can’t do better than that. So just chill, Bill.
It’s now Saturday morning and seva has started. It feels so normal. Of course, quieter than it would have been on a pre-pandemic Saturday but there is a certain buzz, a certain joie de vivre in the air. They’re so happy to be here; we’re so happy to have them. The air feels lighter.
But for us little is different. Ann is in the garden, I’m at my desk. Pollen allergies are ever present. Life goes on. We patiently wait for the past to return. It won’t, will it? I suspect we don’t know yet how our lives will be changed once the pandemic fades, but somehow it probably will. The economy will also dictate some changes, but what they will be is speculation. I think I’m becoming an old softy. As I wrote a line about the economy my immediate thought was of fear for the sangat, with new immigrants in a challenging situation.
So underneath the contentment that has come from a quiet lifestyle there is also fear and worry. Those lovely enemies of joy and peace of mind.
As I’m writing this I have my mask around my neck ready to be put on when I go out to check on seva. God, we do live in strange times. As I set up for sevadars this morning I put out a box of masks, a box of gloves and a few bottles of hand sanitizer. It is starting to feel so normal. Our two sevadars who were home for five weeks recovering from Coronavirus are returning to work on Monday. Good news, but again, I feel a little unease as I hope that they don’t have a relapse.
Enough. Please know that we are thinking of all of you and hoping all is well with you and your families. I was just writing to the sangat of the challenge of finding joy in the midst of the restrictions we live in. Please, let’s all find our joy. In years to come we will tell our grandchildren and great grandchildren about living through the great pandemic of 2020. We will exaggerate the stories, just a little, to add some masala to them, to show how easy they have it in comparison to what we lived through. But I hope we will tell them how much contentment and pleasure we experienced during this time.
So be well and be cautious, and my very, very best to all of you.
Bill