16 April 2020

paradise in a pandemic

In this time of pandemic people around the world are worried about everything. But most of the world population is already locked in some form of poverty or another. The Third World cannot make enough money to live in the best of times. And in the West self medication has replaced a spiritual solution. Now with the sharp loss of incomes and jobs scarce in the West, people will begin to know what the poor of the world have been going through all this time. It will not be a pretty picture.

I am living out this pandemic in a kind of paradise here on the north coast of Australia. Instead of feeling guilt about that good fortune, I practice gratitude at every opportunity I can. It is all I can do for the moment. But the economic toll whose bell never ceases, will toll for me too soon enough. 

What to do?? For the first time in my own small life I now have no Plan B except to keep painting each day both in the studio and at the beach. 

I used to be a worrier. I used to joke that when I was still in my mother's womb I asked GOD to please make me a WARRIOR for this next new life I was about to begin. He must have misunderstood me because I came out a WORRIER. But I have changed, and now I do not worry as a habit. I have too much to do before those same bells will toll for me too. In the meantime I paint.


Evening Prayer Brunswick heads, 11 April, 2020, oil on canvas board. 30 X 25 cm


No comments:

Post a Comment