Let me preface this by stating this is not an original thought. I mean, really…IS there such a thing anymore? No, I read something yesterday on Facebook that someone forwarded. It was attributed to an “Unknown Author” so, who knows? If you wrote it or know for certain who did, let me know so I can give credit where credit is due. 

The premise of the post was the pandemic and where we factor in it. I’m sure we all have read “We are in the same boat!” That couldn’t be further from the truth. “We’ll get through this together!” Oh, that I truly pray for. But in the same boat? Nope. We’re in the same storm. And even that is somewhat different. The storm in Washington state and Florida and New York and Texas and New Orleans is far different than Montana and Wyoming and North Dakota and even here in West Virginia. 

The only thing that is absolute is, we are facing the same enemy…Covid-19. That’s the storm we are collectively facing. For some, it’s hardly a blip on the radar screen. For others, it’s a Class V Hurricane. To say we are all in the same boat is totally inaccurate. We are all in our own boats…sailing along as best we can with what’s being thrown our way. It’s a crapshoot where the dice will land when they’re tossed our way.

Some of us are riding this wave with life vests out the wazoo. Money in the bank, food in the larder, a mortgage free home. It’s pretty much business as usual with a little more time at home than we’re used to. Maybe we don’t get the choicest cut of meat or they were out of our favorite wine. Maybe our biggest challenge is getting oh so bored with the menu at Chez Home Kitchen or we’ve gone through our DVR’s backlog of “must see” shows we always wanted to catch up on.

Others have always been a paycheck away from hunger or homelessness. We’ve got parents teaching their children through online learning on top of working their own 10-12 hour day online…if we’re lucky enough to have a job, period. Some of us don’t have sweet and tender spouses ready to be there to back us up in our darkest time of need. Some of us have suffered abuse at night but at least had those hours on the job as a way to escape the blows for a while. Some of our children are facing hunger now more than ever…maybe for the first time in their little lives. Maybe the weight of the crises between moms and dad is spilling over and the littles are catching the brunt of it in ways we cannot imagine.

We are NOT in the same boat. The single mom with three kids that’s trying to figure out how to keep her family together is not the same as the retired couple sipping their martini and watching the evening news together in their neat and tidy mansion on the 9th hole of the local country club. 

We are NOT in the same boat. The dad who works three jobs to put food on the table and finds himself standing in a food bank line for 10 hours to receive a sack of groceries the likes of which others can pick up at the corner market without a second thought. 

We are NOT in the same boat. Blacks and Latinos are dying in far greater numbers simply because their demographic puts them at a higher risk for disease.

We ARE, however, in the same storm…more or less. We are facing a formidable foe. I pray we get through this together. But some of us won’t. Many of us won’t. 

We are seeing exactly what I told you we would see. I told you, if the numbers didn’t turn out to be the mega-catastrophic death tolls originally predicted, we would have people screaming that we over-reacted. I told you this would happen if the curve flattened but it’s not because we over-reacted. It’s because the safety measures we put in place did their jobs. This debate will rage for months…could more lives have been saved if we started earlier? Did we do enough? Did we do too much? Where and when did the virus actually start? Since we didn’t have enough tests, what is the actually number of patients infected? 

Now we are seeing protests of the shutdown and some officials are easing restrictions in what others see as too soon and with reckless abandon. Just the other day I wrote a post about gaslighting and we are seeing more and more of that, too. Changes will come at a dizzying speed and it’s going to be hard to keep up. Throw a presidential election in the mix and…holy cats…what a mess.

It’s not all gloom and doom, though. Look at how folks are rallying around the people on the front lines. Look at how people are contributing and volunteering and organizing. As Mrs. Rogers told her little boy…”Look for the helpers.” They’re out there and they are doing good things. There are positive things coming from this. People are searching out ways to be of service.

If you’re still having trouble finding a ray of hope, try this. There wasn’t a single school shooting in all of March 2020…the first March since 2002 to not see one.

That is a sobering thought.

Maybe, just maybe….maybe we don’t WANT to go back to normal. 

Maybe this is our chance to change. This is our do-over.

I had to do it after Mr. Virgo died. I had to create a whole new normal. A whole new world. A whole new identity. Heck, if I…in all my messy dysfunction…could work with God and create something as beautiful as the life I’m living, anything is possible. 

Anything.

❤️

““Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”

Isaiah 43:18-19 ESV

#StartingOver, #Healing, #Coronavirus