For a few months now, we have been watching the news and seen the horrors unfold in other far-away, distant countries caught in the grips of the smallest of invaders, a virus called COVID-19. We didn’t think it would affect us. We went about our daily lives attending sporting events, shopping, worshiping with our congregations, dining with our families in niche restaurants, booking flights for vacations, grabbing drinks with coworkers for evening social hours, and casually wrote life off as normal until...
Here we are, America. We are faced with a crisis that is affecting every asset of our proud way of life. We can’t watch little Johnnie play in Little League. We can’t go to Pizza Hut, beating the crowds for lunch after church. We can’t go to church without first ensuring that we can maintain a six-foot distance from those around us. We can’t send the kids to school or attend work with our coworkers.
When a stranger sneezes as we are darting in and out of Wal-Mart or other local retail shops in hopes of snagging a hand sanitizer, loaf of bread, or a misplaced pack of elusive toilet paper, we glance up in paranoia wondering, “what if...”
We can’t visit loved ones locked in nursing facilities or assisted living homes. We can’t celebrate and bring flowers to a friend in the hospital that has just given birth. We can’t invite our “circle” to long-planned weddings. We can’t attend highly anticipated concerts or even support the local bands in privately owned, usually packed venues. We can’t even take our out-of-school children to the local city park to burn energy and play in the sunshine.
But, amongst being told all the things that we can’t do, there is something vitally important to the preservation of the American way of life that we can, no MUST do. It’s quite simple, really. Remain calm. Breathe. Think. Be reasonable and responsible.
See right now, social media has become the way we reach out to one another in this new way of life called “social distancing”, and I’ve seen a sharp division among people with their posts.
I’ve seen those that cast blame and lash out viciously through their screens spewing hateful words to all those around them blaming the government, starting conspiracy theories, calling others idiots for desperately trying to hold on to a way of life that puts money in their pockets and food in their children’s bellies.
I’ve seen members of local music groups called selfish because they worried about where their next gig would be because that is how they provided for their families. I’ve seen waiters and waitresses called pathetic because they simply didn’t know where to go to earn money to eat, themselves, that evening. I’ve seen politicians called morons for making hard decisions to close public facilities because they were trying to protect the greater good.
But then, I saw something else. When the schools closed their doors, I saw older ladies in their communities offering to make soups and pb&j’s for children that may have been counting on those free school lunches. I saw adult children sitting outside the windows of their elderly parents that were inside nursing homes communicating with them via cell phones. I saw major chain retail stores dedicate the first hour of business to senior citizens to put their minds at ease about coming into contact with asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19 that were younger than them. I’ve seen strangers offering to make food runs for vulnerable members of their neighborhoods. I’ve seen people ordering takeout orders from “mom & pop” restaurants hoping to help support their beloved town eateries.
I read a letter from a doctor addressing the concerns over COVID-19 when it began to unfold here in the U.S. that has truly stuck with me. “We will never know if we did too much through this, but it will be very apparent if we didn’t do enough.”
So keep that in mind folks, on the other side of the tunnel, when we all get through this, will you look back and realize that you were part of the problem lashing out and blaming everyone else, or will you look back and feel proud that you did what you could to keep the calm and help with solutions. The American way of life depends on YOUR answer.
