Today, Friday 20 March, is International Day of Happiness"This year's theme for the United Nations International Day of Happiness is 'Happier Together,' focusing on what we have in common. Everyone wants to be happy – and life is happier when we're together. " Well that's a pity isn't it? Given the pandemic, one thing we won't be able to do is get together. Togetherness is being cancelled and prohibited all over the world. These people fronting the home page of the International Day of Happiness website are a happy looking bunch. They've been doing something useful – cleaning up the world, but this year they'll have to work well apart. A bit of common senseThe pandemic is everybody's talk and many people's panic. However, my elder daughter received an email from her church which did contain a bit of common sense. As well as nails and screws advice about how the church planned to deal with the expanding crisis, it contained an essay written 72 years ago. C S Lewis, the essayist, was a great Christian apologist and a commentator on the way of the world. Maybe these secular days he's mainly known for his Narnia children's stories such as The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. But in 1948 he wrote about atomic bomb panic. Here and now his essay is worth reading. Just substitute 'pandemic' for 'atomic bomb,' 'bomb' and 'bombs.' He wrote: Are "bathing the children, playing tennis" lovely, happy things to do on World Happiness Day? SingMy wife belongs to a small but scattered online meditation group. One of the members sent to the others a poem she had seen by Fr Richard Hendrick OFM, a Capuchin Franciscan friar in Ireland. He's just written it. Here it is. Are "slowing down and reflecting" joyful happy things to do on World Happiness Day? Sing! Global fightOn Tuesday I read this in my local daily paper: 'Climate experts say coronavirus could help the global fight to reduce carbon emissions. Social distancing, self-isolation and working from home could become the new normal, and that's seeing emissions drop worldwide. Victoria University of Wellington, climate science professor James Renwick said the global response to coronavirus could set a precedent for how the world reduces its emissions in the future. "Some of the things we're having to do are exactly what's called for." Renwick said messages to fly less and live lighter have been around for years – now people are being forced to change. "The way people are reacting could be seen as kind of a model for how we think of an early response to climate change."' Can we be glad and happy on this World Happiness Day that emissions are dropping world wide? Yes we can, but we'd be gladder and happier if we knew that people everywhere, especially those in power, are not, right now, planning to get back to the comfortable, thoughtless, high emissions recent past, once this crisis has gone. Love and respectToday Friday 20 March I find plenty to be happy about. But I'm also disappointed by the panic buying. Me first and too bad for everyone else. I understand it's world wide. Certainly the supermarket shelves in my country are stripped of goods. Not just the supermarkets. A friend was at a big garden centre yesterday. He wanted to buy a few silver beet plants to grow in a pot on his balcony. None. No vegetable plants at all. People are scared of running out of food so they've suddenly turned to gardening. After the Christchurch shootings last year I thought we New Zealanders had developed a new-found sense of love and respect for our fellow citizens. In panic buying I don't see much of either quality. Our prime minister has urged citizens not to panic buy. The big supermarket chains have done the same – loudly. There is plenty for all if we all buy normally. We need to recover our love and respect for each other. And those qualities need to come from the heart. Happy World Happiness Day! □ Click a photo if you'd like to see it more clearly. References: just click C S Lewis as sourced from TGC US edition In the Irish Post Richard Hendrick poem In DomPost Pandemic helps climate change efforts – Renwick John McInnes Friday 20 March 2020 ##########
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