When you can’t think of anything else for yourself than fear of the diseases that are taking place around you in an epidemic, and go to sleep at night with these thoughts of fear, then unconscious after-images and imaginations–imbued with fear–are created in the soul. And this is a good seedbed in which pathogenic germs can nestle, thrive, and find a pleasant breeding ground.

Fear is not appropriate today and even far less so in the future. What happens in the feeling of fear? The blood is pressed toward the center of the human being, into the heart to form there a firm center in order to make the person strong against the external world. The innermost power of the “I” brings this about. This power of the “I”, that works in the blood, must increasingly become more conscious and powerful. In a future stage of evolution, humans will guide their blood very consciously toward the center and be able to make themselves strong. However, what is unnatural and destructive about this today is the feeling of fear that is connected to this flow of blood. In the future that must no longer be allowed to be the case; only the power of the “I”, without fear, must be at work there.

Now that one can no longer go to the gym, there are other muscles one can train. One is the distancing muscle. Actors know about that. The art in acting is to stretch the distance between two actors on stage. Let’s say in a dialogue. How far can one move apart and not let the space between go slack, or even worse, dead.

Now that we are all to practice social distancing there is an opportunity to practice this with all and every object around us, the living and the innate. It does not mean we no longer should face the world or each other. On the contrary. On a walk we can choose a tree in the distance or a flower on the ground or a person, the one who sits six feet away from us in the subway and enter the space between oneself and the other object. One can increase the distance to objects one chooses. Most likely it is an empty space at first, maybe even dead, but then one decides to turn one’s attention to it, and one can increase or decrease the consciousness one brings to it. One can flex one’s attention like a muscle. And one begins to feel the space between; the in-between space becomes alive. It can even take on a certain bounce, with a very subtle vibrating sensation. One can also try to see how far one can stand apart from someone and still extend that embrace, the caring word, and feel the in-between space stay alive. In human relationships, it is often either standing too close or too far apart. In both cases, the in-between space can be flat and dead when not filled with that intentional consciousness, the attentive interest, called love in its most profound state.

At any moment during the day we can go to that “gym” and exercise the muscle of social distance by trying to bring the in-between space to life.

And a most powerful closing thought about distance from the French philosopher, mystic and political activist, Simone Weil: “God created through love and for love. He did not create anything except love for itself and the means for love. He created love in all its forms. He created beings capable of love from all possible distances. Because no other could do it, he himself went to the greatest possible distance, the infinite distance. This infinite distance between God and God, this supreme tearing apart, this agony beyond all others, this marvel of love, is the crucifixion.”

And he did so for all of humanity to be held by His love within that distance, that in-between space, that divinely human, humanly divine space between.

It is time for all the heroes to go home
if they have any time for all of us common ones
to locate ourselves by the real things we live by.

Far to the north, or indeed in any direction,
strange mountains and creatures have always lurked:
elves, goblins, trolls, and spiders – we
encounter them in dread and wonder.

But once we have tasted far streams, touched the gold,
found some limit beyond the waterfall,
a season changes, and we come back, changed,
but safe, quiet, grateful.

Suppose an insane wind holds all the hills
while strange beliefs whine at the traveler’s ears,
we ordinary beings can cling to the earth and love
where we are, sturdy for common things.