Being Unwell - a reflection

Nicholas's address today coincided with the US Presidential Election and the general malaise or "unwellness" being felt by many as we ponder the fragility of the democratic process  - at home and abroad. This malaise has coincided with the Covid-19 pandemic. It is driving the rise of extremist, right-wing politics that thrives on inequality, fear, ignorance, and denial, and threatens to fracture civil societies  - especially those that allow their citizens to own and carry assault weapons along to political rallies to intimidate those with whom they may disagree.

Nicholas commences today's address "Being Unwell - a reflection" with Jennie reading W.B. Yeats's "The Second Coming". 

"....The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.....
...And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"

Yeats wrote this poem in 1919  - in the aftermath of the First World War and the bitterness and violence of the "Easter Rising" in Ireland. Instead of celebrating the end of hostilities in Europe, the poem captures the general malaise and sense of foreboding felt in Ireland and exacerbated by the Spanish Flu.

Comparisons between these two pandemics, and the political turmoil and the malaise being driven by them are palpable. Yeats's fear was that "the centre cannot hold"-  that civil society will be torn asunder. Nicholas asks: "How do we listen to the wildness in our own soul  - the wildness of our yearning?" He offers wise spiritual counsel and sees hope and renewal through the creative arts, through our histories, through our stories and through the social "glue" of community  - the "UU wheel of practice" to "hold our centres together" and help us through the current malaise. This is essential listening for all!