I have a confession to make.
Being at home a lot of the time I have opened the fridge and cupboards or put the kettle on far too often.
Simply because they are there.
Usually I would be out and about – and the temptation to have a little something with my cuppa just wouldn’t be there.
The fact that I have set up office in the kitchen doesn’t help.
I am mere steps away from the cheese calling out to me and, even although I would far rather eat savoury things than sweet, I have taken to having the odd biscuit – or three.
I’m not sure why.
There are those who would suggest that perhaps the stress of the times we are living in means that my subconscious yearns for some comfort.
But I don’t feel particularly stressed.
Although… when the video of the service refuses to upload to YouTube so that the waiting masses can see it, that does do things to a minister’s blood pressure.
There have been times over these last few weeks when I have been sorely tempted to throw the computer out of the window or to throw something, anything, at it.
But other than that, I don’t feel any more stressed than pre-lockdown.
Others might suggest that reaching for food – or drink – is perhaps a way of coping with a way of life that has changed and is beyond my control.
And while I might be inclined to bake bread and eat it, others are coping with the changing of their world by going for a run or joining an online Pilates class, playing music or enjoying some other artistic or creative pursuit.
Jings!
So why did I draw the short straw and head straight for the fattening option?
The fact is that everyone is different.
We all react differently to the circumstances around us and we all feel the impact of those circumstances differently.
There are those who will be loving simply being able to have the time to do what they want to do and don’t mind not seeing other people.
There are those for whom that time is too much and seems endless, making each day long and drawn out – and there are others again who find that it’s the not seeing and meeting others that is the hardest thing of all to bear.
They need their “people” fix.
In these last few weeks, we have needed to learn to be more understanding.
While we might have stuck strictly to that one walk a day and got uptight at someone else who was clearly and regularly out more often, we need to recognise that there are those who, for the sake of their sanity, needed to defy that once-a-day rule because walking is their way of not giving in to an addiction.
Or it is their way of coping with depression. Or it stops them harming themselves or others.
We all share the same difficulties but our heads, our bodies, our emotions, react differently because we are different. All of us.
If that’s the case right now, when we are in lockdown, is it not every bit as much the case in other circumstances too?
I am thinking of people I know who, for example, share the same kind of tough childhood and upbringing, but while one seems to have been able to come through relatively unscathed, others can carry deep scars that leave their mark for the rest of their lives.
While lots of people endure the breakdown of relationships, for some the recovery afterwards feels akin to climbing the highest mountain without any help from anyone, while others seem able, fairly quickly, to adapt and restart their lives.
This is why courts, when a person is convicted of an offence, call for background reports.
It is not to look for loopholes to “let the person off”.
It is to see if there are things in a person’s past – and present – that have or are adversely affecting them in such a way that it has led to their criminal behaviour.
The hope is that in understanding, the appropriate help can be given.
Our world right now may feel as though it has shrunk down to the four walls in which we live.
We need to understand that while, for some, that is no more than an annoyance, for others it is devastating. Life-limiting. Perhaps even life threatening. And all shades in between.
We are all different.
No two people are the same. And those differences are what make us unique.
Let’s not turn that uniqueness into an excuse to judge – rather let’s see the very different people we are as an excuse to celebrate the amazing, wonderful, mind-blowing variety of life that encompasses what we call the human race.
Let’s live and let live.
And enjoy it as we go.
The Very Rev Susan Brown is minister of Dornoch Cathedral and the former moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland
