As I write this I’m riding across South Dakota after a few days of work in the Hills. The smoke from fires in Ontario and fires in the western US are blanketing us with thick smoke.  The air tastes bad and as far as I can see - and it’s not far - all I see is a gray landscape.

This pandemic does not want to leave us alone.  It is a sinister, conniving thing that is finding new ways to cause illness and death.  New and more challenging variants have resulted from its sneaky ability to mutate.  When crises come our way our first tendency is to ask “why.”  Mostly that gets framed as “why is this happening to me (or to us)?”  But here’s the deal - that question rarely helps us.