Pandemic Thoughts

For the past month we have been avoiding the virus and staying home with a few exceptions for doctors and groceries. I have watched all the news reports I can stand. I have read countless comments on Facebook and posted a few myself. I find it all very repetitive and overwhelming at this point.

The appropriate mantras have been repeated over and over. “We are all in this together. We will get through this. It’s going to be all right.”

We are in it together, in one sense. We are all human. We are all subject to illness and death. What one does can affect many, for good or ill. We need each other for emotional support, for providing information, for guidance about what we should do, for providing food and supplies, for providing health care.

No man is an island,
entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent,
a part of the main.

. . . . .
Any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind;
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee. --John Donne, Meditation 17, 1623

John Donne found value in suffering. He said that it is good for us to share our neighbors’ pain: “No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by it.” In other words: No one suffers alone, and being aware of another’s pain makes us stronger and more able to live.

But in other ways we are not together. We are “social distancing.” We are cut off from friends and loved ones. My family and I are among the privileged. We have a secure guaranteed income in retirement (although we have temporarily lost about twenty percent of our savings investments). We have a comfortable home that is paid for. We have very good health insurance. We have pretty good health for our age. We have cable TV with Amazon Prime and Netflix. We have books to read. We have a network of friends, family, and church members who keep in touch by phone and internet.  We have strong faith and spiritual resources. There are many more people who do not have these things and are struggling with little hope. Many of them are struggling financially. Many of them are sick. Some are dying. We are not together in our circumstances.

As for getting through it, of course most of us will, but not all equally well. The majority of us will either not get sick or will have moderate symptoms and get well. Some will have a very hard time getting through the viral infection. Some will pass through it into death. Some will pass through it into bankruptcy. Some will never be the same due to traumatic stress. This takes a lot of the strength out of the third mantra. “It’s going to be all right.” In many cases that is superficial optimism. There is some value in positive thinking and whatever degree of hope we can muster. There are many heroic stories of people helping each other. We need to look on the bright side and encourage one another, but the ability to do that runs out unless we have deeper reasons to hope.

The ability to hope in the face of suffering and tragedy depends on experience, wisdom, and emotional maturity. But most of all it depends on sources of strength beyond ourselves. Years ago I read in a forgotten self-help book this profound insight: “None of us is born strong enough to withstand life.” We can get some of the strength we need from other people, but we can’t always count on that. Ultimately, if there is to be enduring hope, it must come from some deep, eternal source. Some reality that is so strong that it can stand anything. Something we still have, or something that still has us, when we have nothing else. Something that is stronger even than death. Something that is the source and meaning of everything.

That source has been conceived of in many ways by the world’s philosophies and religions. I find the best answer to be in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures and in the faith communities that live by them. The source and meaning of everything is God, who created the universe and is greater than the created order. God, who created it all, has made Godself known through acts of redemption and renewal throughout history, most of all, in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, who is the physical embodiment of God, both human and divine. Throughout the Bible, and most of all in the compassion and suffering of Jesus, we are assured that God loves us, cares for us, suffers with us, and gives us life that is stronger than death. The source of our hope is God’s promise that in the end all things will be made right and complete. This does not mean we will not suffer or that evil will be overcome before the end. It does not require us to have all the answers or know all the details of how God works. But it does mean that whatever happens, we can trust God. This is the ultimate source of hope.

This has been very personal for me for several years since I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer. It has been successfully treated since then, but it still threatens to end my life at some point. At eighty-two, I can’t expect to live too many more years regardless of the cancer. What then, do I hope for? I hope to see my grandson graduate from high school in four years. I hope to be spared severe suffering. I hope to live to ninety. But however those hopes may be realized or disappointed, I rest secure in the hope, the confident expectation, that God loves me and cares for me, and that when my earthly life ends, I will be with God forever.

We are all in this together. We are going to get through this. It’s going to be all right.

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea. --Psalms 46:1, 2, NRSV.