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Yesterday, I found myself uncharacteristically switching off the news. At the time I felt I wanted to escape - I couldn't take any more of the reality of covid 19 and the terrible suffering it's bringing, the loneliness it's causing. What happened was that I didn't 'escape' from reality, but I was reminded of other realities. Simultaneously on another station, I learned that figs have evolved in such a way as only to let into the fruit one particular kind of wasp. A beautiful revelation about the amazing eco system we are part of ourselves. I also heard elsewhere some stunning singing of a 17th century opera celebrating the unmistakable invention of the human musical brain in both composition and performance. The covid 19 story is so relentless and comprehensive because there is no part of our lives left untouched by its effects. A football manager on this programme yesterday when asked if covid was making football matches 'difficult' with no fans or atmosphere, replied with despair in his voice; it's worse than difficult it's pointless. Taking away what makes life worth living is a virus-induced outcome that sits alongside the medical ones. If we allow it, it seems like the only story in town. As part of what makes life worth living, religion has also been guilty, is still guilty sometimes of convincing its adherents that there is only one story, one dominant way of interpreting reality, of looking at the world. What is inevitably rather tender truth about life and death can be corralled by a fretful religious desire to unify by domination, creating doctrines that brook no opposition or admit no contradiction. But the best kind of religious practice will always want to say that paradox, creativity and mystery are the soul's native language, its mother tongue. Christians forget at their peril that Jesus wrote no doctrinal treatises, he told stories. And helped people hold within themselves multiple truths; that they were forgiven as well as culpable, that they were free at the same time as obedient. Covid 19 is the dominant story of our lives at the moment; the virus is ruthless in its threat to crush our creativity, and destroy our hope. Just as important as physical wellbeing is the irreducible need for spiritual and emotional resilience, refusing to let our thoughts be colonised by the repetitive and corrosive anxiety that covid brings. This is in itself building resilience in a pandemic; reclaiming our power to choose what stories we listen to and what stories we tell.