UNIVERSAL MESSAGE
I started counting the numbers of reference from so many different viewpoints remarking on the ‘reasons’ for the virus. Many say it is Mother Nature’s direct intervention to get the planet back on course. Others consider it a ‘smite-Thee’ plague visited upon on the people for sins.
There zero few who want to say. Viruses happen.
Please understand I’m not being Blaise about this. It has proved itself to be dangerous, lethal, terrifying, crippling, and a scourge on human life. There are ways to keep from passing it around and we, most of us are trying, to follow the rules so that we don’t get it. Many of us so we don’t pass it on to someone we love as much as not wanting to endure it ourselves, or even die from it.
Every cough or sneeze you hear, or have, sets the mind to wondering if this is it?!
Your mind races through the list of symptoms that come and go and are broadcast and repeated and thrown up as if there is a step by step progression. There may be some but usually you hear it just hits. No warning about someone who gave it to you because you may have encountered them two weeks ago.
Is this where the real dilemma comes from. When my children got the chicken pox I knew exactly the friend they were playing with who later that day popped out into the pox. (My kids got it from a friends kids…at least it was the Presbyterian Pox.). This is different.
But it happens.
So what do we make of this? Perhaps the question should be what do we learn from this?
We have learned some things just by observation: That we don’t need to go to the store everyday. That the sky is clearer when there aren’t so many cars on the road. That rivers run green and clear when companies are not’ dumping waste into them upstream.
We learned that people really do need people and that being around only q few people for a long time isn’t easy. We learned that teachers have a big job. We have learned our children can be really funny just on their own. We learned that the internet can connect us for conversations and meetings we otherwise would not get to have with friends or family.
If we are paying attention we learn that the world is not fair—That some people can’t just stop their work or their families won’t eat—That not everyone has backup or money in the bank to tide them over.
We know that there are millions of people in other parts of the world who are sick and dying and we will never know their names or how many of their families die or their villages die or their people die. Nevertheless, we don’t seem to care.
The sun shines on us all. The moon reflects the same light on all the world. The rain falls and doesn’t fall on the good and the bad.
We all go together or we don’t go at all.
Let’s go together from now on. Imagine there’s no boundaries between us. It’s just all us.
It’s not some great plan to punish some and reward others. It’s the way life on earth has always been. We can change and slightly manipulate our own little part of the earth.
We are really all the same. Bobbie Giltz McGarey 04.16.2020
The Spirit Will Tell You 