Ad hoc

This is the first time I have ever written directly on this site, without brainstorming, and prewriting on a word doc first. But everything about our lives these days seems sort of ad hoc. So I am letting my stream of consciousness prevail.

While on the one hand, I struggle to exercise some form of order and control over my day to day existence, a fog descends on that structure periodically making it hard to steer the car properly and drive, no matter how well marked the roads may be.

My classes are all set up. I work painstakingly on giving very explicit detail and structure to my students so they won’t have the added burden of being confused about what they are supposed to do. At the same time, I tell them that I am not trying to add stress to their lives, and I expect them to do the best they can do, nothing more. Yes they can contact me for help, and I will respond. We are in this together and I hope to give them a meaningful way to pass their time at home. But I know they may have other responsibilities and anxieties they and their families are experiencing. My work should take them away from that, not add to it.

We are trying hard to do all we can do to be safe. Will it be enough? We have grocery shopped before the serious home quarantining set it, and I have discovered already how kind people can be. I have had a couple offers of people willing to shop for us and a neighbor picked up a few items last night, I am grateful for that kindness So we are prepared, but we are not prepared. …. Who is really prepared for this? What does that even mean?

I know that life is really in God’s hands. So I am reassuring myself that as ad hoc as day to day existence feels,there really is a plan for all of us, including my immediate family i have to give myself over to the plan. I have to relax and roll with the punches. i Have to accept that as humans we can never see the whole plan. Hence, no matter how organized we try to be, we will never fully control our destiny. Do we influence it? Yes, or course What we do, say, and feel all matters and plays into our destiny But we don’t deal the cards, we only play them. I am trying to play this hand the best I can.

To all the nurses, doctors, grocery story clerks, pharmacists and others in the front line of this war on the invisible enemy, I send my love and ask for God’s blessings.. You are the heroes, the destiny drivers in our universe.

Speaking of the universe, I can only begin to imagine the fears and suffering that go along with fighting this war with little or no weapons at your command. The hearts of the entitled world go out to you, and hopefully aid will follow closely behind to materialize the soft spoken compassion that cannot in a just world be ad hoc.