COVID-19 and Our Better Angels

Disasters like fires, earthquakes, floods, tornados, and hurricanes often generate lovely stories about neighbors helping neighbors. Not so much with the coronavirus. Our neighbor might be the enemy.

Emergency situations often produce panic buying, but the crowds out now are a little more rabid, seeking hand sanitizer and toilet paper. Not unlike Black Friday folks but just a little meaner. Scoring a cheap flat-screen TV is one thing, but perceived survival is quite another. And then, there are the gougers trying to make money off the desperation of others.

Along with them are what I call CoronaNazis: people who glare at you if you so much as sniffle. Maybe you have a friend or family member who’s upset with you because you aren’t panicking like they are. God deliver you if you show up to work with a cold. You don’t get points for being a trouper. (That last word has the letter  “u” in it, by the way).

Does the coronavirus have a purpose? Is it payback for eating fellow mammals? In my dark moods I think it’s Mother Nature’s way of thinning out the herd. But It’s also a reminder that we don’t always have the control over things that we think we do. If someone had told you a couple of months ago that the stock market would crash, that conventions, festivals, concerts, and sports events would be cancelled, or that iconic international tourist spots would be empty, would you have believed them?

Another illusion is that of independence. We are finding out how much of what we take for granted comes from elsewhere. Even if we make something here, we need some of the parts rom there.

The global character of this challenge is both the bad news and the good. The Bible says God is no respecter of persons. Neither is COVID-19. It’s not about geography, race, color, creed, gender, sexual orientation, political party, socioeconomic status, or even moral standing. It’s nobody’s fault. The cooties are the same for everyone. Some of us may think of climate change as some distant abstraction, but the coronavirus is right here. We really are all in this together.

So let’s do our part to be practical, seek out the facts, avoid panic, learn patience, and treat each other with respect, and we’ll get through this. The human race has been through worse, and we’re still here.