As I write this, it is late March, 2020. It’s been a while since I last shared my thoughts. And If the truth be told, it’s been a depressing few years, here in the desert. My life has taken some turns which I would not have wished for; the job I now have is not the one I was hired for, almost two years ago. Over the intervening span of time, it has been changed, tiny bit by tiny bit. The conditions under which I am required to perform it continue to become more demanding, and I have had to learn to live with the repeated threat of it being taken away from me if I do not find a way to do it both faster and more perfectly. Soon I expect I will be required to work from home. I have not had to do this before, and I resent being forced to allow my work to intrude into my home, my sanctuary, my retreat. This will make it even more difficult to do this job.
And yet, I name the Name of God, and try to live my life as my Master tells me to. I fail, of course, but I am forgiven. I have accepted this disappointing chapter in my life because it is a tenet of my faith that God is in control, and He has a plan for me. Since time began, He knew I would be working here, at this time in my life, at this time in the lives of those around me, and in the history of my country and my planet. And so my faith requires me to believe that, like Joseph and Paul and Daniel, I must walk the sometimes-difficult path which has been set before me by my King, and find a way to live as He commands, or as closely to it as I can manage, so that I may be obedient to Him and to bring him such glory as I am able. So I do my best to accept it, and pray every day for His Will to be done in me, and through me, and not my own will.
Some times, some very dark and very early mornings, that prayer is harder to pray in my heart than at other times, other brighter, sunnier afternoons.
I recently came to realize that as miserable as this job is, at least I still have one. Right now the Coronavirus Pandemic, CoVid-19, has gripped the world. It swirls invisibly around us, threatening us, intimidating us with it’s unknown aspect. Because of the nature of the infection, and because of the poor choices of our current President, Donald Trump, we have wasted 2 months of valuable time, and are just now beginning -beginning- to prepare for this test of our nation which is already upon us, and among us. We are being told to practice something entirely new: Social Distancing. I suspect as you read this in the weeks and months to come, you will be quite familiar with it, but right now, it’s new, and we are as a nation (and a world) grappling with how to wrap and bend and twist and wrench our lives around it. We are, many of us, finding ways to adapt to the idea of spending week after week after week, stretching into an unknown number of months ahead, physically separated from other human beings.
No gatherings of more than 50 people are allowed, and most recently even groups larger than 10 people are being discouraged – or simply prevented form occurring at all by police and authorities, depending on which city or state you happen to live in. This means no professional baseball, basketball, hockey, no March Madness, no audiences at TV shows, no evening news teams on the same set with each other. It means many, many radio and TV programs are being broadcast by formerly high-gloss hosts and anchors and reporters from their basements, or their living rooms, or their kitchen tables. No schools, no high school proms, no graduations, no St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. In many states most places where people formerly gathered like bars, restaurants, stores, coffee shops and clubs are all but closed. Stores limit the number of patrons who can be inside to handfuls at a time. Restaurants and dining establishments offer drive-thru and pick-up orders only; their lobbies are locked, the tables and chairs stacked mutely in the corner, or out of sight entirely. Businesses large and small will go under. And the people who formerly staffed these places, stocked the storerooms, waited on customers, rang up their purchases, cleared their tables and cleaned their glasses…they don’t have jobs anymore. By the grace of God…I do.
But despite all of this….we have yet to see the full effects of the virus. Statistics guess that before the virus is through with us, maybe a month or more from now, perhaps as many as two-thirds or more of America will eventually become infected. Due to timing and luck, I am in one of the most at-risk categories: 60 or older, with underlying health issues. These same statistics estimate that the vast majority of folk in my group will survive. But approximately seventeen out of every hundred will not.
That’s a frightening percentage. The kind that can keep you awake at night.
I’m used to seeing odds expressed in chances of winning the contest as one in a million or a hundred million….not in seventeen out of every one hundred other humans just like me – gone.
No funerals, either.
Part of me wonders what life will be like over the weeks and months to come, as Spring slowly turns to Summer, because that’s how I’m wired. I want to learn new things, to watch history unfold. How will our government adapt to this New Reality? How will we? What will go back to “normal”…and what will not? I’m on the front lines again, as I was for Watergate, and 9/11, and the dawn of computers and the Information Age. But part of me also longs for less – less details, less complexity, less fear. Simpler times where I can deal with what I want to, or am able to, and then let the rest go where it will. But -at least so far- I haven’t been offered that choice. So I continue with a job I dislike more each day, and at the end of the day I head home to watch the slow-motion train wreck that my nation and my world have become. And I will try and maintain my faith in God, that He is in control, that He has a plan for me, that He loves me and will not forsake me. May His Will be done.
The Cool of the Evening 