Hopefully, by the time this comes out September 1st, things will have calmed down a bit in our world.

As I write this, we are “locked down” in SE Queensland.   Never before in my lifetime, have our personal freedoms been this impacted. For 16 months we have not been permitted to travel overseas. It just isn’t allowed! Who would have thought that to be possible?

Now, during lockdown, we are literally not allowed to leave our house without a narrow list of what the government considers compelling reasons. If we do leave we are not supposed to be more than 10 kms from home. Where I live, Maleny, EVERYPLACE is more than 10 kms away. So I am restricted to not leaving Maleny. This is actually happening here in Australia, and now in 2021!

I am writing this about Covid and lockdown because it really emphasizes to me that there are things we can control, and things we cannot control. Whether you agree or disagree with the government restrictions, it is out of your control. Compliance, of course, is within your control, but the government, having more power than you, can punish you if you disobey. But the government can NEVER control what we think, how we feel or how we treat each other.

There is so much anger in our communities and passions are running high.   People are scared of Covid (and the “Delta strain”) and angry with people refusing to be vaccinated. Others believe this whole thing is insane and are angry at the people supporting the push to vaccinate.

This feels like one of those times in history where we can hold onto our own beliefs and honour and respect the beliefs of others. It’s a time where we can choose to treat each other gently and kindly.

How we treat each other is always within our control, and regardless of how we feel about this, we’re all going through this crazy time in history together. Believe what you believe and fight for what you think needs to be fought for, but let’s be nice to each other.

Sometimes that’s the only thing we can control, but often, that is everything.