19/04/2020
Thoughts on change
One of the more optimistic themes emerging during this pandemic is to use this imposed change as a springboard to sustained (and perhaps sustainable) change.
The profound fragility of our society is staggering. We have lived in a delusion of power and stability while we have simultaneously undermined those goals in the most fundamental ways. Our method of agriculture is systematically removing top soil in a century or two that takes tens of thousands of years at a minimum to develop. Our energy hungry mode of life poisons the biosphere including our own food chain, engenders rapid (geologically instantaneous) climate disruption, ocean acidification, and unpredictable and unstoppable effects. These are just a few of the problems we accept and they were all present before this pandemic.
As near as we can tell, the virus that causes COVID19 significantly affects exactly one species: homo sapiens. We have described about 1.6 million species and it is estimated there could be 10 million more even though extinction of unknown species is also believed to be rapidly occurring. Call it 1 out of 10 million affected, and apparently most of the others are benefitting. To me that is a breathtaking idea. I don't welcome or celebrate the death and suffering among our own race, but thinking about this more holistically offers some perspective.
At the very same time we see profound acts of courage among healthcare providers, food producers, and even "lowly" grocery store clerks, and so many more make the small sacrifice of acting sensibly, there are other voices and behaviors. It is somehow deemed patriotic to flout rules and guidance designed to protect us all (even at great cost) to protest for the sake of the hyper-individualism that appears to be the United States' great curse and worst aspect. We simply don't want to cooperate for the common good. Minority voices true enough, but so loud, so full of assuredness of being right while so pitifully wrong.
Where is humility in this? Thankfully, I see a lot. It is certainly there in the actions of those who know they have to risk themselves for the sake of others and the community at large. It is there in those who live at the edge in occupations at the margins or even below a living wage who accept a role suddenly important beyond expectation. It is even there in some elected officials who grasp that sometimes you have to lead and do the job even if it costs you a great deal, even if it goes against the grain of a constituency, even if you admit to your own inadequacy.
Today is Divine Mercy Sunday, and don't we indeed need and hope for that.
