My music  today  is Wagner’s Prelude to Lohengrin.   Music  that  brings back good memories.   Among  other things , it  takes  me  back  to  a  holiday  in Natal and the  Friday morning  that  we drove  through  the  green, forest lined road.   There are  many more good memories associated with this music.

“Most people exist in an emptiness between memory and anticipation.” Louis L’Amour – Kiowa Trail

This quote  is  very  true.   We often live in the  past.   We  remember  good  things, crave “the good ol’ days.”  We remember bad  things and replay them like a bad movie on repeat.   Sometimes,  like Echardt  Tolle writes in Power or Now, we allow the  bad  things  to become our  “Pain Body” and it makes or lives miserable. The  problem  with the  past  is, it’s  over.   I  cannot relive yesterday.

I can fondly remember a Friday morning in 2012 in Natal, but I cannot go back to that day. In these times I see Victor Frankl cited a lot.  A good thing, because he really can teach us a lot.  Victor Frankl  also  said: “live every moment as if you have already done it and made a  mess .” It’s  not  a  verbatim  quote    –  I ‘ve read Man’s Search for Meaning decades  ago  over  a  weekend  in Hermanus.

Tomorrow, so  is  the  wisdom, is  not promised to  anyone .  Who  can  guarantee  that  he is going to be here  tomorrow?  And yet, it is the tomorrows that often mess up our future!  The worries about tomorrow.   All  that  “what-if’s”  that keep us so busy .  It keeps our minds occupied, it makes us anxious and we stop living – like a rabbit at night caught in the headlights of a fast moving car.  I love to play  with Excel’s “What-If”  feature.  It can keep me  busy  for a long time.  But that is a game!

Now, in Lockdown,  I think  most  of  us have the same “what-if’s” about money, finances or income .  What if the lockdown lasts longer?   Where  will the money  come from?  How  will I pay for the things I need?   Indeed  – how  will I pay for Checkers’s Sixty60 to  deliver food without income?  It’s  real concerns for many people.   Probably for most people.

It is not about the money  –  it is about important things like medical aid and  life insurance  –  it is about  the most  basic  things  on Maslow’s  hierarchy  –  physical  security  – food,  clothes,  shelter.   It is about health and financial security.   Maybe  in the  northern  suburbs  of  Cape Town  we  will now understand  something  about the daily reality in  Khayalitsha?  Although I think the person in Khayalitsha is better off than the person in the Notrthern Suburbs of Cape Town.  The man in  Khayalitsha  is  better off because he never trusted in Discovery or Sanlam or Liberty for security.  Money has never been his security. His  security lies in his community.   Perhaps we will learn something about this during COVID19.

At the beginning of the Virus, I posted on Facebook  about  Lietaer ‘s Future of Money and  one  of  his  solutions  –  Communitas.   I  see  Communitas today – security in and through society.   I see it in the  people who said to the lady who cleans our rubbish bins  that they will pay her,  she must stay at home and stay safe. I see it in people who freely arranges webinars on the Internet to help everybody. I see it in people and companies giving away paid courses to help people to keep busy or learn new skills. A month free at Scribd.   Access  to  virtual  Museum  Tours.   Morning  and  evening  gamedrives  in the Kruger  Park.   Communitas.

What strikes me from L’Amour’s quote, is the “exist” – we just exist .   We do not live.  In 2012 I had an amazing holiday in Natal, with Lohengrin. Although we often talk about it, it is in the past. It’s over.   I can’t live tomorrow.  When I try to relive the past or fret about the future, I end up existing.  I’m not living!  What a waste.  (Can we waste the lockdown, too, by keeping too busy to just be?)

I can only live in the now.   Here, where I sit now and listen to Lohengrin, I have to acknowledge my own feelings of  fear and uncertainty .   Here, where I sit now, I have to realize I can’t  do  anything  about a lot of things.  I can’t just sit and wait for the worst to happen.  The worst seldom happens, anyway.  And the situation will also not be as bad our imagination makes it.

Let’s enjoy the time we have.   When did I ever have the opportunity to sit at home and read Louis L’Amour in the middle  of the day without feeling guilty?   When could I ever keep myself busy with things  that  interest me without  feeling guilty that I am not working?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqk4bcnBqls

As a bonus, another of my favourite music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW3SSOT8iYc

My music today is from Karl Jenkins – The Armed Man – incredible music. I am listening to Benedictus.  Below is another version.

I am using Prov 4:23 for contemplation:  Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.

My journey began long before lockdown and self isolation.  On 11 Feb 2020 I had a knee replacement and was homebound for 2 weeks.  I decided to use those two weeks productively.  Learning is part of my life.  That is what I do.  That is what I did.

I downloaded Manifest Goals Using Law of Attraction on mset my phone and set myself some goals.

I also read a lot about Law of Attraction.  A lot of what I read or heard sounds like fairy dust to me.  At the same time I cannot deny the “My fok Marelize” effect – if you say I must not hit the pole, you probably will!  There is something to the self-fulfilling prophesy idea.  We tend to create the things we think about.  Therefore I am not completely negative about the law of attraction.  I just don’t think lying on my back an visualizing winning the Lotto is going to give me the correct numbers.  Till Eulenspiegel  said “Nobody likes me, but that is how I am.” Our thoughts create things.

When I was about 16 years old, my uncle gave me a copy of Niebuhr’s prayer:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference

It was on my desk even at university.  To my shame, I have to admit I only came to understand it a few years ago.  I can only change one thing in the whole universe.  Just myself.  Only myself.  That is all.  I can try to influence my wife, kids, friends, my domestic worker or gardener.  Good luck with that, they are just as influence-able as I am.  We only change if we want to.  What about the people in Khayalitsha or Europe or Donald Trump?  I can only observe.  No influence what so ever.  They will do whatever they want to do.  Even if I think they are wrong or stupid or ignorant.  They do not even know who I am and could care less what I think.  That is why there is no sense in wasting time or energy worrying about it.  In the same way I have no influence on exchange rates or interest rates.  I can just adapt to what is happening.  I can only change myself.  Changing oneself is about changing thoughts, says Romans 12 and thousands of books.

The weekend was very productive.  Saturday I attended a Brian Walsh webinar.  Brian has improved a lot.  He really has.  The biggest reason for the improvement, though, was because I was ready for the message!  As the saying goes, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.  Unfortunately undersea cable problems created internet problems and I could not attend after lunch.  What I could attend was really good.  John De Martini said an important thing:  “The Corona virus is not an obstacle in the way, it is the way.”  I will leave that to you.

Sunday I started posting my journal on Moneyskills4life – a bigger step for me than most people may think.  And another contact invited me to an hour long discussion by international sales trainers giving ideas to “covid-proof your business.” Seems this Law of Attraction thing works!

Sunday evening in bed, reflecting on a good day in lockdown, I suddenly realised that there are 3 things that followed me like a shadow since my seventh year.

1.  Each and every school rapport since 1st grade said the same two things:  I am helpful and my handwriting needs improvement (I think I should be a brain surgeon then. Just a joke.)
2. Since my university years I always had a “newspaper” of sorts.  In Theological Seminary I had Diepseun.  An anonymous publication looking at things and commenting in a satyrical manner.  National Service with the Navy’s submarines, I had Periscope.  Even had a centerpiece.  One time it was a picture of people rowing a whaleboat and the heading:  “The person rowing the boat does not have time to rock the boat.”  Within 30 minutes of distribution Lt D rushed into my office and accused me that it was intended for her.  Now why would she think that?  In the Ministry I had a quarterly newsletter for the Teens.  The parents could not wait to read it.
3. People trust me with their secrets (and I am proud to say their secrets are safer with me than money at Fort Knox).  People approach me for advice.  Like people calling asking what I think they can do during this economic period.  People asking business advice.  My opinion on things.  Or somebody who whatsapped me on Sunday:  “You were there for me during my most difficult time.” He made me think about this part of myself.  Often people call me wise.  I do not think I am wise, but appreciate that others think so.  It seems I add value, even if I do not realise it.

I will have to think how I can use these three things in the world after Corona.

I would love to hear your thoughts.  Please leave a comment below.

I love listening to the Valaam Monastery Choir.

The music calms me and helps me to focus.  The turmoil of thoughts in my head seems to slow down.

The story of Jeremiah 32 is in my head even before lockdown.  On about 8 March a researcher send out a Telegram that the virus will have devastating effects.  “This is a disaster. People will lose their jobs, their houses, their savings.”  Interestingly, when the President announced the lockdown, he also used the word “disaster.” Ever since 8 March, reading that Telegram, Jeremiah 32 is in my head.

The story of Jeremiah 32 (you can read it yourself) is that Jeremiah is imprisoned.  Jerusalem besieged,  Jeremiah believes the Jews will be carried away to Babylon (he was right).  Then he is forced to buy a piece of land.  Who buys land in time of a disaster?  Who buys land that you know you will never use?  Jeremiah does.  He then puts all the contracts and deeds in a clay pot, because he believes, even if he will never “own” the land, his children, or grandchildren will.

Jer 32: 15 “For this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Houses, fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land.”

How do I do what Jeremiah did?  How do I, in time of a virus, act with faith and hope?  It has always been difficult for me to express my feelings.  Irritation, like when I made that Hilux video, is easy.  It is on the surface.  I have an impatience with people who do not stop to think before they just share things on social media.  Irritation is easy.  But how do I verbalise the feelings I experienced when I read about Edcon on Wednesday evening – Lockdown Day 0?  I know about Edcon.  They have been in trouble for a long time.  I have an idea their business was always a type of boom-bust affair.  I can remember that Willie Hamman, my favouriet professor who reminds me of Morrie, had us analyse Edcon annual statements and how their ups and downs correlated with their debtors.  I know about Edcon.  But it is not just Edcon.  It is all the suppliers downstream who are now affected.  It is the employees, from Edcon right back to the smallest supplier, who are affected.  It is at this point where a sob wants to escape from my heart!  The suffering on a personal level …

The images from Italy, deaths, sickness, people being treated on the streets, are terrible.  On a personal level the suffering is terrible.  Every person who dies is a member of a family.  The worry about a sick loved one must be terrible.  There is no guarantee that this will pass me by.  Soon we can/will have the same situation in South Africa.  This carries me through – I have no control over it.  I have to walk the road as the road goes.  And act with faith and hope, like Jeremiah.  Unfortunately, saying it is a lot easier than doing it!

Perhaps there is more to this?  Perhaps it is now like Jesus said: ”Let the dead bury their own dead.” (I am not trying to explain these Bible verses, just quoting on the sound of it!)  What about the living?  How about the Chinese factory workers returning to work, but there is no work because orders were cancelled or deliveries postponed, because Europe is now going through the same process as China?

What about our own workers in South Africa?  How do I “buy land” as Jeremiah did, in a time like this?  On what do I base my hope and faith?  What can I do to build a new (and hopefully better) future?  One thing is sure, the world into which I will exit lockdown is different from the world from which I entered lockdown.  And as a few days has gone by, not necessarily worse!  There are too many signs of humanity everywhere.

In these times we do not complain about what we do not have, we are grateful for what we do have.

This morning I pray a prayer one my clients sent me:

Friends, please pray with me for people in terrible circumstances in small shacks or rooms.  That they will understand the seriousness of the situation and that God will help them with patience.  Please pray for the addicts who now have to go without alcohol or  cigarettes and that they will see they do not need it.

Please pray for businesses like mine and Edcon who now cannot pay rent, medical aid, PAYE and other commitments.  There have to be thousands like us.  Please pray for a miracle.

Pray for churches who are now without income and they will be able to fulfil there commitments miraculously.

Pray for our President who has to make difficcult and unpopular decisions

Pray for all of us for survival of this disaster.  Pray for people all over the world who are affected by this virus.

Please pray for my family and myself who are in lockdown, as I pray for yours.

May you experience peace and blessings in this time of isolation.

That is my prayer too.