It’s the end of the week in which life turned upside down where I live.

A couple days in, I was seized by an urge to bake. Every day since, I’ve had porridge with raisins and hot milk for breakfast. I have a no-knead bread recipe on my counter, waiting for the next baking urge to hit.

I imagine this activity arose from a desire to ground myself in the familiar and ordinary as an antidote to the extraordinary circumstances we find ourselves in.

Like nothing else…

“Extraordinary” almost seems too tame a word. Even those of us who’ve lived more than seventy years have never experienced anything like this. 

It’s not that life has always been smooth and lovely. Lots of bad things have happened throughout history, and none of us has been completely untouched by the trials of being a human.

So what’s different this time?

Two things come to mind immediately:

• There is no place to run. This is not happening to someone “over there” to whom we can send money and sympathy. It is affecting all of us directly, in every way imaginable.
• It has shaken our foundations. We have discovered that most of what we’ve taken for granted is actually not secure. What could demonstrate this more graphically than gigantic systems being brought to their knees by a microorganism?

The opportunity…

What good is a crisis if it doesn’t prompt us to revisit and rethink our assumptions about life? 

• What is good? 
• What is bad? 
• Where does life surprise us?

I included this video in a previous post, Only time will tell the whole story. That post mentions three beautiful books you might find timely.

Rethinking…

In recent days, I’ve found myself thinking back to things I wrote in Conscious Spending, Conscious Life. And so, I’m offering the digital version of my book free until April 20, as part of Smashwords’ Authors Give Back sale.

Download your free copy using this link which takes you directly to my book page. Click on the orange button in the right-hand column that says “Buy with coupon.” It will take you to the cart and show a price of $0.00. You can download the book in whatever form you prefer conscious(epub, mobi/Kindle, pdf, etc…)

And what about you…

What have you noticed about your response? What are you thinking? What are you craving? I’d love to hear from you…