Finding Grace in This Free-Fall

And The People Stayed Home
by Kitty O’Meara

And the people stayed home.
And read books, and listened, and rested,
and exercised, and made art, and played games,
and learned new ways of being, and were still.
And listened more deeply.
Some meditated, some prayed, some danced.
Some met their shadows.
And the people began to think differently.

And the people healed.
And, in the absence of people living in ignorant,
dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways,
the earth began to heal.

And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again,
they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images,
and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully,
as they had been healed.

Kitty O'Meara's (a former teacher and chaplain from Madison,Wisconsin), prose poem "And the people stayed home" has gone viral and impacted many people during the Covid-19 pandemic including me.  

She wrote this when her husband suggested that she "Write. Just write again,” when she was overwhelmed with anxiety as she’d watch the pandemic unfold. 

"I just kind of sat down and wrote it," O'Meara said. "I saw the maps of the receding pollution over China and Europe. I thought, ‘There you go. There’s something of blessing in all suffering.' And I thought with my passionate love for the Earth, maybe that’s one good thing."

From Oprah Magazine: "O'Meara is not an expert on dealing with this global crisis, she says. She's just another person, trying to find grace in the free-fall.

How are you finding grace in this free-fall?