Insights on Interruption and Change

In Thursday’s press briefing to his state, NY Governor Cuomo said three things in dealing with Covid-19 that caught my attention:

1. One person cannot fight the pandemic. It takes all of us.
2. When there is a disruption in your life; you look for how you can “make better,” not “make the same.”
3. Improvement requires change. All change comes with opposition.

Take a moment to think about this. Any major life shift can be substituted for the word pandemic. “Starting a business,” “healing from an illness,” “reuniting a family,” “getting married or divorced,” “buying a house, etc.” Allow this to be a template lesson.

A successful elimination of Covid cannot be done alone. It can’t. Look at the roles necessary for its elimination:

US Government: Country vision for what’s emerging, direction, information and funding
Governors: State vision, local numbers, implementation of US Government plans
Mayor: Distribution of funding, oversight of stay at home orders
Essential workers: Providing services necessary for us to remain at home
Public: Stay at home, wear masks when out in public, social distance
Protestors: Voicing opposition for change they don’t like

When I dig down deeper I see the Lightworkers in prayer holding the world ever so gently, the visionaries listening for what is wanting to emerge and speaking to it. I recognize the hardware (phones, computers) and software that have kept us connected and all of the innovators and manufactures that made the hardware and software. The farmers growing food. The pickers picking it. The truck drivers moving it from one place to another. When I continue to follow the interconnectedness I come to the realization Thich Nat Hahn had about the world in a sheet of paper:

If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in a sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow: and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are.

“Interbeing” is a word that is not in the dictionary yet, but if we combine the prefix “inter” with the verb “to be”, we have a new verb, inter-be. Without a cloud, we cannot have paper, so we can say that the cloud and the sheet of paper inter-are.

If we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the sunshine in it. If the sunshine is not there, the forest cannot grow. In fact nothing can grow. Even we cannot grow without sunshine. And so, we know that the sunshine is also in this sheet of paper. The paper and the sunshine inter-are. And if we continue to look we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into paper. And we see the wheat. We know that the logger cannot exist without his daily bread, and therefore the wheat that became his bread is also in this sheet of paper. And the logger’s father and mother are in it too. When we look in this way we see that without all of these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist.

2. We don’t plan on disruption, but when it arrives we can welcome it for the evolutionary value that it brings. In New York, the pandemic forced the government to look at the homeless problem in their city and innovate. Cuomo said the country would look back at the pandemic and be able to say that New York ended homelessness during this time. What can you and I do that once seemed impossible that is now radically possible because of this disruption?

3. All change comes with opposition. I hate this. Okay, that’s too strong of a word. This is grossly uncomfortable and not my thing. But it is part of the process. Cuomo, also known as The Lovenor, praised all leaders in his state for being willing to take the push back that has included threats of violence, scathing words of attack, etc. To be willing to withstand aggression for implementing change takes courage.

These three ingredients exist, as I mentioned, when we undergo change. We require the inter-be to open a business, buy a car, get physically well from a chronic illness, and develop a friendship. There will be disruption as the old is no longer. And, making the change will bring about opposition to those who want your life to remain the same. Smaller scale, same pattern.

Remember, we are all in this together. Each one of us is needed and necessary. Stay the course. You are loved as you are love. Give some away today.

Blessings,