These are the days, our friends; it seem they’ll never end… but they will. This country — in fact, the whole world—has never gone through a tragedy or a crisis from which it did not rebound and in some cases possibly even come out better at the other end.Everything seems gray or even black when we’re in the middle of it, but there is always an end somewhere down the road, maybe even a rainbow, and the sooner we all share in the vision for this to end, the sooner it may end.
We are not a religious publication, but we do all believe in God, and we believe that no prayers are ever wasted. While we do not believe that our prayers can sway God if he had something else in mind, we do believe that our prayers help us, the ones who pray. Prayers give us strength to get through things, and strength to accept things, and strength to help our family and friends. And if nothing else, prayers help reinforce our connection to our God. God is not responsible for this virus, and blaming him does nothing to make it go away. Save your blaming energy and use it to pray for an end to this pandemic.
We’re sure God doesn’t even care who you are, or what words you use to pray, as long as your prayer is not for personal gain or some other selfish goal. Somehow we don’t see God, no matter whose God he may be, as playing favorites. Thank goodness that God does not wear a black
robe and can be bought off by the lawyer who offers him the biggest bribe! If we can’t trust that God is fair, who then can we trust?
Yet while we pray for this coronavirus to fade away or be cured, that doesn’t mean that we will then just sit back and not do our part.
There are things we can and ought to do to help keep the virus at bay—such as keeping our social contacts to a minimum. (Practicing social distancing and self-isolation.) Mace’s column on page 14 makes it very clear what we can and should do, and he got his information from the CDC website. Some people will ignore those few simple things, but most of us will heed their advice. None of us want to be the next victim.
Some of us have to be in contact with others, such as if we need medical care, and those who go shopping for groceries have already been there, done that and experienced some of the paranoia that is out there, but most people either wear a mask or not, and just go about their business, buying what they need — if it is still available. It isn’t that the stores are not receiving their supplies and stocking their shelves; the delivery trucks keep showing up and now that the stores have limited their hours, they will tend to stock the shelves close to closing time, or even after. The items will likely not be available to the public till the next morning. And as most shoppers probably know, stores are now reserving the first hour or two of the shopping day for those over 60 — the senior crowd — due to popular demand.
For the most part people are acting civil. Thank goodness it’s not like Black Friday where fights break out over who gets the last item on a shelf. But it has gotten to where the store management must hang signs designating only one of something to a customer, even though some customers try to get away with buying as many of one item as they can. They are giving in to the hoarding mentality that has been known to have existed during wartime, and has probably been stirred up again thanks to some of the media, even though there is no war. The mentality of “I must have mine” and pretty much “it’s every man (or person) for himself,” shows itself in some stores.
Situations such as we are going through now with this novel coronavirus that presently does not have an end in sight shows us who we are. Unlike good and prosperous times during which we may choose to share with others, these “empty shelf” times bring out our true personalities and sharing often becomes a thing of the past. Even while every shopper knows every other shopper also needs toilet paper, the one who gets there first might not care about the others and just grab all they can.
If you are caught taking all that toilet paper, you may well see your photograph one day being used as the poster “child” for COVID-19!
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