Reflections
Greeting my neighbor on my short walk to the mailbox and asking him “Did the grocery store have eggs today?” is not normal. I could have added a “comrade” in that sentence — “Did the grocery store have eggs today, comrade?” — but this is not the Soviet Union and the lack of eggs on any given day (or toilet paper on most days) is not due to a shortage in production. Chickens, after all, are still laying eggs, farmers are collecting them, truckers are delivering them, and stockers at my local grocery store are still replenishing the refrigerated aisles of the grocery store. Until they are emptied by ordinary folks who are, rightly or wrongly, in panic mode.
There is something weird going on, something not quite right, something beyond the deluge of bad news and panic.
For your consideration: I opened a Word document to start this column on a Tuesday, late afternoon. As I finish it on Wednesday, roughly 24 hours later, an average of 7,700 Americans have died in that time and in the United States of America from cancer, heart disease, stroke, suicide, drug overdoses, car accidents, you name it, according to 2017 statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. On Planet Earth, an average of 156,000 human beings die every day from things not coronavirus-related (various sources). Since January 21 when the first case of coronavirus infection was recorded in the US, a half million people have died from something other than this virus. On Planet Earth, over ten million have died from something else since that date. In Macedonia, if I have done my maths correctly, almost 3,500 people have passed away from those things and since that date. And not to put too fine a point on it, but since we are talking about saving lives, 7.5 million abortions around the world have taken the life of the most innocent among us — the unborn — since that date. Just something for you to think about as you shelter in place.
I get it. Politicians, in every country — since this virus has given new life to the sovereignty of the nation-state — are grappling with an almost impossible task. And, to be fair to them, they are having to answer questions with either limited or no information — an almost impossible task. The economic fallout is already crashing down around us everywhere and a Global Depression is not out of the question. What do those politicians do? Persist with the “flattening of the curve,” the cliché of the day, and two meters of social distancing, a near-shutdown of a great deal of the global economy or open it up and risk letting the virus have its way with us?
As Victor Davis Hanson notes, “We can confirm who dies from the virus, not always the greater number who will likely die in a depression.” Or who die as a result of the panic. For instance, do we count the 23 prisoners killed in a prison riot in Columbia over coronavirus concerns as victims of coronavirus or not? People are dying daily from things coronavirus-related, but not the virus itself; but you won’t see too many of these stories in the media.
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States of America and considered to be one of the greatest or, indeed, the greatest US president as he successfully took America through the Civil War but at an almost unimaginable cost in human lives and suffering. Shortly before he was elected president in 1861, in a speech in 1859 before the Wisconsin Agricultural Society, he told this story: “It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: ‘And this, too, shall pass away.’ How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! — how consoling in the depths of affliction! ‘And this, too, shall pass away.’”
In this — the seemingly depths of affliction — it is vital to remember that this too, shall pass away. But we must also remember it for those other times in life, in the hour of our pride and arrogance, that this too, shall pass away. The pride, the arrogance, the evil (yes, evil is real and has a name and in fact, its names are Legion) — as Solzhenitsyn said, the line dividing good and evil runs right through the middle of every human heart — all of these things are our doing, not the virus.
Maybe, perhaps, since too many in our world today think they are god and behave as if they are gods, then God has allowed this plague at this time to remind humanity that, well, humans are humans, and weak ones at that, and God is God. And I won’t limit this to those who mock God (the militant atheists) or those who simply don’t believe in God (the “regular” atheists). Too many of us who actually do believe in and worship God behave in a manner that is not Christ-like all too often. (And I need to make a clear distinction here: God sending a plague and God allowing a plague to happen are two very different things. Think about it).
No matter why this is happening right now, it certainly is an excellent time to think, to reflect. As individuals, as families, as friends and neighbors, as societies and countries, as humanity — maybe it is time for us to reflect on who we are, why we are here, how we got here and where we are going — not insignificant questions.
And maybe it is time to consider our relationship — as individuals — with God. Just one thought for you as you shelter in place.
