Living a cloistered life is surely not for the emotionally frail nor those who don't like to get their hands dirty, because with all this time on one's hands and regular trips to the market not really an option, you need to get down and dirty into the soil and plant and harvest your own crops. And, I don't mean, cannnibi, canna, cannibis, but more like a literal can of worms (who do the work of Mother Nature tilling the soil) and plant vegetables and herbs and the like. And while we would love to just leave all the work to the worms, who can't really do it all, a rotating list of us penguins would take a turn at the hoe. For turn, turn, turn to everything there is a season (apologies to Ecclesiastes 3 and The Byrds) and a time for planting. And hoping they'll sprout faster, you have Sister Margaret of the Thornbirds (don't ask) deciding a little rain dance to the gods wouldn't hurt. So she whooped and chanted and danced around the garden as we lit tiki torches and beat on a drum and banged wooden spoons on pots and pans. And eventually it did rain and the crops sprung up, climbed trellises and trailed along the ground and bore fruit and vegetables, and all that water also sprouted a little "weed" or two (we were bored and Sister Ignatius needed something for her arthritis). And all it took on top of that work was a little patience with a capital "P" on our part.
And that's what I propose for the lot of you misguided "we read the Bible so think we're God" sign carrying fanatics wanting to end the Safer At Home orders. My dears, pandemics like nuns who have had too much to drink require isolation for an extended period of time. And a virus would like nothing better than to hop from one to the next and infect each and every one of you thereby proving Darwin's theory. So take a page from our book - stay home, turn over the soil in your backyard and plant a garden or if in an apartment then in a planter box. So much healthier for you than boo-hoo-hooing that you can't go to the ballpark, although being beaned in the head by a baseball might actually help knock some sense into you. So, perhaps toss a ball to your socially distanced neighbor and ask them to throw it at you. Ten points and a roll of toilet paper if they hit you in the crown.
Well, that's enough preaching for a Sunday. It's time to go into afternoon vespers (i.e., a nap) before getting up to go for a walk six feet apart looking like a black and white wing span walking down the road. Then popping the cork on a good vintage bottle of wine from the cellar (Jesus's gift) and settling down to dinner, and a socially distanced game of cards.
Cheers, good ones, and please read a book, oh misguided ones. Imagine that, a book. Might help.
